ELSA Cable manual IP addressing, Kinds of networks

52Technical basics

Host:		Host
Sender	Data packet
	with recipient
	information

Host	Host:
	Recipient

Protocol

TCP/IP

IP network

Internetwork Internet

Local network (LAN)

Kinds of networks

An important prerequisite for communications between computers is a common language among the hosts. In the world of network technology this language is called“network protocol” or simply“protocol”.

The most broadly distributed network protocol is the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). It is used mainly in the Internet, but nowadays more and more company networks use it. Examples of other network protocols are IPX or Apple Talk. Because of its wide use, this chapter deals mainly with the TCP/IP.

All hosts wanting to communicate using the TCP/IP protocol have to be plugged into the same network and have to have the TCP/IP protocol (also known as TCP/IP stack) installed. Such a network is referred to as an IP network.

The connection of multiple networks based on the IP protocol is referred to as an internetwork. The largest union of many small, public IP networks is the Internet.

A network covering a limited area with hosts on the same hierarchical level and using the same medium (shared medium) is called a local network (Local Area Network, LAN).

IP addressing

Packet-oriented transfer

In IP networks the communication between computers takes place in a packet-oriented fashion. This means that data or messages are packed together in packets of variable length and are as such sent from the source computer to the target computer. Apart from

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