Advantages & Disadvantages of Networking

Advantages of Networking
Speed With the help of networking you can save your time, such as you can share and transfer your files and data easily, without a network the data is transfer through discs, memory cards, from one computer to another. This is time consuming.
Resource sharing Sharing of network resources in the main feature of networking, Its mean that you can share your printer, CD player fax machine and other peripherals with other computer on network. You can also restrict any user from a particular network devise.
Security The main advantage of networking is its security features, with the help of user, group policies you can save your files, from illegal copying and editing, you can save your network resources from miss use, you can restrict your office mates to access a particular data, you can save your registered software from illegal copying.
Costs In market there are softwares available for network computers on very considerable prices, as compared, if you purchase software for every computer separately in your office.

Disadvantages of Network
Administration You need experts to maintain and administer your network properly which require more budget for their services.
File Server Goes Down If your data is stored in one computer on a network and it goes down, it will stop all your work,
First time installation charges You must have initial budget for designing a network at the time of first time installation, because you require LAN Cards, Cables, Routers, software that work on network, a network technician who design network for you.
Security You must check your network security issues, such as if your are using wireless must check its security issues time to time, you must have antivirus installed on your network computer to save your data.
Cable Break The break in cable of your network may stop your entire network to work.

WAN

This network connect the computers in long distance such as city to city, usually this network is used by university different campuses, big corporations having offices in different cities. Through satellite communications WAN also extended country to country and to other continents. The medium through which network computers are connected with each others are almost the same and there is no much difference in both of networks except in WAN we use telephone lines, Satellite technology, wireless equipments etc.

LAN (Local Area Network)

LAN stands for local area network, normally this network is limited in a office building, or in a school building. In a LAN usually one computer is dedicated as main server through which network administrator control the entire network through user and group policies, and all other users on LAN are bound to their assigned tasks, and they use network resources only on which they have rights. There are also other servers on LAN such as mail server, print server, file server etc. All other computers in LAN are known as workstations.

Network Definition

The basic purpose to design a network is to share network resources, such as network printer, files, and other peripherals, the computers and other resources may be linked through wireless, phone lines, network cables, infrared technology, or with the help of satellite advanced technology. There are 2 types of networks, LAN and WAN (LAN stands for Local Area Network, usually designed for schools, libraries, universities, and office buildings, while on the other hand WAN stand for Wide Area Network and as the name shows it is usually designed between two cities, or long distance offices of one big corporation or company. The media of designing these networks are different from each other, but the aim of both type of networks are the same to share resources. There are other types of networks to such as WWAN (Wireless WAN) WLAN (Wireless LAN) MAN (Metropolitan Area Network)

Topologies

Bus (Topology)
In Bus Topology a single wire is used for network, and only one cable is used as a communication medium, which is cheap from other topologies. Installation of cabling is easy and all network computers, printers and other peripherals are connected with this main cable. 10Base-2 & 10Base T types of cables are used in this topology. This Topology is very effective in small networks where  network resources are limited,  usually 10 to 20 computers is suffient in this network to maintain properly. The break in cable or if the computer is physically disconnected from main cable without proper method, or any other devise which is disconnected from main cable may disable all the network to function, and communication between all computer can break.


Ring (Topology)
The use of this Topology is very rare now a days. In this topology all the computers and network devices are connected with one single cable and the token (FDDI, SONET or Token) in this topology move clock wise or either anti-clock wise. Like bus topology if the cable is break, or any computer may disconnect from main cable without proper way this will disable the network to function. This topology is usefully in office, schools, or buildings.


Star (Topology)
This Topology is very useful, and all the computers, printers, and other devices are connected with the central device called (hub, switch or router) this topology is very useful in schools, buildings, and in offices,  the advantage of this topology is that, if one computer is disconnected from network or if a cable is break, this will not effected the remaining network, but if a central devise like hub, switch, or router my damage will break down the entire network, In this network the UTP or STP cable are used. In this network more cabling is required, so it is costly as compare with bus Topology.


Tree (Topology)
If multiple Star Topology is connected on a linear or bus topology, this is called Tree Topology. In this Topology all the computers connected with each hub and these hubs are then connected with main cable as in bus topology.

Mesh (Topology)
In start, bus, and tree topologies when a user send a data to another device on network, this data was broadcasted on network which make network busy and slow down the performance of overall network, but in mesh topology the data is send directly to the destination through router, a router find the shortest route to send the data directly to the targeted computer.