1.4

1.4

1. LAN (Local Area Network)

   • Computers are connected together over a small geographical area such as a single building or a single site
     • Home network
     • School network
     • Network in a shop
   • LAN has its own infrastructure of cabling and network hardware due to distance and practicalities

2. WAN (Wide Area Network)

   • Computers are connected over a large geographical area. This could be several buildings/sites, town wide, county wide or even country wide.
     • The biggest WAN would be a global collection of networks (known as The Internet)
   • WAN uses external hardware and external infrastructure e.g. use of saatellite, phone lines or The Internet.

3. There are two ways of setting up a network to share data and services

   • Client Server
     • The network relies on a central server
       • All clients (Devices) request services from the server (e.g. print services/file services)
       • Additional hardware would be needed e.g. high end powerful servers
   • Peer-Peer
     • All computers have equal status
       • Each device can act as a client and a server
         • All devices can request and provide network services
           • No additional hardware / software needed to set up this type of network