Computer Networks Basics

In this post, I’ll write about core networking concepts and will try to make sure that they will be useful and understandable to everyone.

Introduction :

To understand computer networking, we need to understand what the internet is. As a Basic definition, “Internet is a collection of networks connected”. Now, what is a network?

network → interconnection of computers is called a network.

Hence computer networking is the concept of interconnecting devices to share information among them.

How The Internet Works:

The Internet is the largest and most widely used computer network in the world. It is a global network of interconnected computers and devices that allows users to access and share information from anywhere in the world.

Let’s see how the internet works in the web world. Now you have a computer or mobile phone and you are searching in the browser google.com. And you will get the below page.

google.com image

Now, what happened is that when you typed google.com and entered, your browser(client) will send a request saying “hey I want something from google.com”. But how does it send the request?

Now internally, The google.com you typed will be converted into Unique numerals and this numeral is called IP address and the request from our browser will be sent to this address.

If the request is given, there must be someone to accept the request, right? So request will be accepted by a computer or collection of computers which are generally termed servers and they are capable of sending back the response if the request is valid. The server will be like “OK, you want a google search page, let me search it”. if it is found, the response will be sent back to the browser.

A server is a computer or system that provides resources or services to the requested computers (in our case your browser), known as clients, over a network. Servers are typically more powerful and have more storage capacity than regular client computers.

Hence in short communication happens on the web through the request-response model. Again this request and response model is a baseline and many rules and technologies are used internally.

request-response basic architecture

In our example, client → browser server → google

Terminologies :

SERVER:

A server is a computer or system that provides resources or services to the requested computers, known as clients, over a network.

CLIENT:

A client refers to a software application or device that connects to a server in order to request and receive services or resources.

IP ADDRESS:

An IP address is a unique number assigned to a computer so that it can be identified uniquely in the network.

Types Of Network:

Commonly said, There are three types of network that is mostly used.

Local Area Network (LAN): LAN is a group of computers and devices that are connected together in a single location, such as a home, office, or school. They are typically smaller in scale and have a more limited geographical reach than other types of networks.

Wide Area Network (WAN): A WAN is a group of computers and devices that are connected together over a larger geographical area. WANs are often used to connect LANs together to create a larger network that spans multiple locations. They are typically used by organizations.

Metropolitan Area Network (MAN): A MAN is a network that spans a metropolitan area, such as a city or town.

Apart from these, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) is also the most common type.

I will write about the OSI model in computer networks in the next blog.

Thanks for reading and I hope it is useful🖤.

Twitter: Anand