1.1.Network Components
Last updated
Was this helpful?
Last updated
Was this helpful?
Designing, installing, administering, and troubleshooting a network requires the ability to recognize various network components and their functions.
The components to consider for now are client, server, hub, switch, router, media, and wide-area network (WAN) link.
The device an end user uses to access a network.
This device might be a workstation, laptop, smartphone with wireless capabilities, or a variety of other end-user terminal devices.
A server serves up resources to a network.
These resources might include e-mail access as provided by an e-mail server, web pages as provided by a web server, or files available on a file server.
A hub is a Layer 1 device.
A hub is an older technology that interconnects network components,
such as clients and servers.
A hub simply receives traffic in a port and repeats that traffic out all of the other ports.
Like a hub, a switch interconnects network components.
They are available with a variety of port densities.
A switch is considered a Layer 2 device.
Switch makes its forwarding decisions based on MAC addresses that are physically burned into a network interface card (NIC) installed in a host .
A router is considered to be a Layer 3 device.
It makes its forwarding decisions based on logical network addresses.
When traffic comes into a router, the router examines the destination IP address of the traffic and, based on the router’s database of networks (that is, the routing table), the router intelligently forwards the traffic out the appropriate interface.
Media varies in its cost, bandwidth capacity, and distance limitation.
Devices need to be interconnected via some sort of media (copper, fiber-optic, wireless).
If your company has two locations, and those two locations are interconnected , the link that interconnects those networks is typically referred to as a wide-area network (WAN) link.
