What is Computer Network?

Glad to see you all with another post. 🙂 Let’s move on to the topic.

Now we are living in the Information age, our needs for gathering, processing and distributing information are getting huge . To fulfill our needs we can use computers but, can a single isolated machine help us to distribute information among others?,  The answer is no, then how can we make it possible to distribute or transfer information or data between computers??
As an answer for this question we found computer network. Computer network(CN) is a set of computers connected together for the purpose of sharing resources.

What are the uses of CN??

• CN helps us to use the resources efficiently, for example a group of office workers share a common printer, none of of them needs a private one.
• More than physical resources it helps to share information. Best example is internet. E-commerce, e-banking and etc, everything is possible with the use of network.

Types of CN

We can divide computer network into eleven types.
They are,

1. Personal Area Network(PAN)
2. Local Area Network(LAN)
3. Wireless Local Area Network(WLAN)
4. Campus Area Network(CAN)
5. Metropolitan Area Network(MAN)
6. Wide Area Network(WAN)
7. Storage Area Network(SAN)
8. System Area Network
9. Passive Optical Local Area Network(POLAN)
10. Enterprise Private Network(EPN)
11. Virtual Private Network(VPN)

among this 11 types LAN,MAN and WAN become major types of network designed to operate over the area they cover. The major differences is the geographical area they cover. For example LAN covers small area; MAN covers an area larger than LAN and WAN covers the largest.
Let’s explore more about network types in the upcoming post.