Computer Network

A network is a group of computers connected together in a way that allows information to be exchanged between the computers.

    Local Area Network (LAN) - A LAN is a network of computers that are in the same general physical location, usually within a building or a campus. If the computers are far apart (such as across town or in different cities), then a Wide Area Network (WAN) is typically used.

A wide-area network is any telecommunications network or computer network that extends over a large geographical distance/place.

Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipment participants in the application. They are said to form a peer-to-peer network of nodes. 

      Client-server architecture (client/server) is a network architecture in which each computer or process on the network is either a client or a server.

     Bus - Each node is daisy-chained (connected one right after the other) along the same backbone, similar to Christmas lights. Information sent from a node travels along the backbone until it reaches its destination node. Each end of a bus network must be terminated with a resistor to keep the signal that is sent by a node across the network from bouncing back when it reaches the end of the cable.

  Ring - Like a bus network, rings have the nodes daisy-chained. The difference is that the end of the network comes back around to the first node, creating a complete circuit. In a ring network, each node takes a turn sending and receiving information through the use of a token. The token, along with any data, is sent from the first node to the second node, which extracts the data addressed to it and adds any data it wishes to send. Then, the second node passes the token and data to the third node, and so on until it comes back around to the first node again. Only the node with the token is allowed to send data. All other nodes must wait for the token to come to them.

Star - In a star network, each node is connected to a central device called a hub. The hub takes a signal that comes from any node and passes it along to all the other nodes in the network. A hub does not perform any type of filtering or routing of the data. It is simply a junction that joins all the different nodes together.

   Mesh topology is a type of networking where all nodes cooperate to distribute data amongst each other.

Protocol

An agreed-upon format for transmitting data between two devices. 

Packet (computing) In Information technology, a packet is collection of data that can be used by computers which need to communicate with each other, usually as part of a network. Some computersand networks do not use packets to communicate. But most currently do, including nearly all computerson the Internet.