Networks

Networks

1. LANs (Local Area Networks)

   • LANs are suitable for smaller areas such as single companies or organisations. your school network is a LAN.

2. WANs (Wide Area Networks)

   • WANs are available over very large areas in many diiferent organisations. The World Wide Web is a WAN.

3. Internet

   • The internet is a WAN which is made up of many other smaller networks

4. Extranet

   • An extranet is an external network which can be viewed by many different people at an organisation such as employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders.

5. Intranet

   • This internal network is private to one organisation, vewable to employees only.

6. Routers

   • These are used to allow different networks to communicate. They can connect a network in a home to a wider network such as the internet.

7. Switches

   • Switches are used to connect different computers together as part of a network.

8. Gateways

   • These allow two different networks to speak to one another by translating data.

9. Bridges

   • These are used to join - or bridge - two LANs together to form one larger network.

10. Packet switching

    • Switches can speed up networks by only sending packets of data to the computers which need the data. This means that less data is travelling unnecessarily around the entire network.

Images and files in the map