If we have
a number of computers in an office, we could use the computers as stand-alone
machines. This would mean that resources
would be local to each machine. For
example one could only be accessing the memory of the machine he is working
with. Another example would be that if a
printer is connected to one of the computers, the other computers can not
access this printer.
A more
efficient thing to do would be to share all resources among all the machines. Examples of these resources could be local
disk drives and folders, peripherals such as printers and scanners, and
applications. This is possible through
use of Local Area Networks or LANs. As
the name suggests the group of computers should be geographically local, for
example in one building or an office usually distances limited to about 1/3 of
a mile. LANs could be large or small
network comprising two computers or many more.
In setting
up a LAN there are two options. It
could be peer-to-peer or it could
be client-server. The two principles are different.
|
The
most popular LAN technology is Ethernet.
What are the features of Ethernet? |
|
|