Basic Data Communications

Lesson 2. Basic Data Communications

This lesson will teach you about basic data communications and hardware related to local area networks and the Internet After completing this lesson, you should be able to:

Understand basic data communications. Understand the OSI networking model. Understand local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs). Understand the TCP/IP suite of protocols.

Topic 2.1 Instructor Presentation

Welcome to the CIW v5 Foundations Basic Data Communications course! You will be learning about basic data communications related to the Internet during this course. The public switched telephone network (PSTN) has connected millions of users for decades, and remains a cornerstone in internetworking today. Since the inception of the telephone, voice has been carried over circuit-switched connections of the PSTN. Originally, all phone service was analog. Today, however, the network is entirely digital except for the portion that extends from the central office of the local telephone company to the user. One would typically use a modem to exchange data over the public telephone network using a dial-up connection. A modem, or modulator/demodulator, is a device that translates, or modulates, a digital signal coming from your computer into an analog signal that can be carried over the phone line. A modem attached to the receiving computer demodulates the analog signal back into a digital one. Today, the PSTN is a hybrid network. About 80 percent of today's telephone users begin a telephone conversation in their homes using analog technology. The signal is then converted into a digital signal at the central office, and this digital signal is sent across a major portion of the telephone network. The signal is converted back to analog at the central office to which the destination telephone is linked. Internet Protocol (IP) telephony is a technology that uses packet-switched communications to exchange voice, fax and other forms of data that were previously carried on circuit-switched connections. Voice over IP, or VoIP, is voice information delivered in digital form as packets of data using Internet Protocol instead of the traditional circuit-switched lines of the PSTN. Electricity is measured according to different standards in North America and in Europe, and computing and networking equipment is manufactured to different standards, depending upon where the equipment will be used. If you travel to Europe and take your laptop or notebook computer that was designed for use in the United States, you will need a special plug adapter and power inverter in order to plug into an electrical receptacle in the Netherlands, for example. Topologies are basic configurations that information systems personnel use to wire networks. They are the basic design of any network. Topologies used to connect computer networks include bus, star, ring and hybrid. A "bus" topology connects a series of client computers and a server in a single, serial line. A "star" topology connects the computers in a cross-over, or start, configuration, in which every computer connects to every other computer. A "ring" topology connects each computer to a circular ring. A "star-bus" network connects each group of computers to its own

centralized hub. The hubs are then connected in a serialized, bus fashion. The "mesh" topology is another hybrid topology. The "mesh" topology is a closed "star-bus" topology. The Open Systems Interconnection, or OSI, reference model was defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1983. The OSI model has three practical functions: it gives developers necessary, universal concepts to work with as they develop interoperable protocols; it describes the process of packet creation; it explains the framework used to communicate with heterogeneous systems. Al they need is a common protocol, such as TCP/IP. TCP/IP is the current standard for both local and wide are networking. Most operating systems include TCP/IP support as a default selection for installing and configuring network support, including current Windows family operating systems, Novell Netware and all flavors of Unix. Windows 2000 and Windows XP, for example, install only TCP/IP on a default Windows installation. TCP/IP is required for Internet access, in addition to being used as a communication protocol on private networks. TCP/IP is not tied to any one vendor, allowing heterogeneous networks to communicate efficiently. Computers can communicate with each other over the Internet if they know each other's 32-bit Internet Protocol (IP) address. The IP address uniquely identifies and distinguishes a node from any other node on the internet. The OSI Reference Model specifies seven layers of interaction for data communication, but the Internet Architecture specifies only four layers. Therefore, some of the functionality of a single Internet Architecture layer handles the functionality of two OSI layers -- for example, the Internet "Application" layer handles the OSI "Application" and "Presentation" layers; the Internet "Transportation" layer handles the OSI "Session" and "Transport" layers; the Internet "Internet" layer handles the OSI "Network" layer, and the Internet Architecture "Network Access" layer handles the OSI "Data Link and Physical" layers. A Local Area network (LAN) is a group of computers connected within a confined geographic area. LANs allow users to share files and servers are a commonly used for intra-office communications. LANs extend over several hundred feet and generally represent one locale, such as a corporate office. You would use a hub or a Layer One switch to connect computers together into a LAN. A Wide-Area Network (WAN) is a group of computers connected over a more expansive geographic area, such as a state or country, allowing users to share files or services. A WAN often connects two or more LANs. The primary difference between a LAN and a WAN is that a WAN involves two separate networks connected via a router or switch. A Network Access Point, or NAP, is a junction between one high-speed network and another. The main NAPs in the United States are in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Most of the cross-country Internet traffic flows across the "backbone" formed by the New York Chicago - San Francisco NAPs. Traffic across this backbone flows in excess of 1 gigabit per second. The backbone is designed to reduce congestion from increasing Internet use. Smaller networks typically connect to the backbone. A Network Operations Center, or NOC, is a specific location, usually a dedicated room, from which a network is managed, monitored and maintained. The term originally was used in relation to telecommunications networks, but is now used widely in relation to data networks. Distinctions among equipment types will probably disappear as data and telephony networks continue to converge. The NOC is the central point for network maintenance and troubleshooting. It contains workstations that are configured to display all activities and functions of the networks being monitored. For example, workstations are configured with packet sniffers and monitoring software that allow NOC administrators to quickly identify anomalous traffic (for example, worms, viruses, traffic spikes or downed networks.) These workstations also contain management software,

including firewall and router configuration software, and ways to control workstations remotely. NOCs also generally include multiple, redundant network connections and redundant power supplies to help ensure communication and power. Most NOCs for larger companies also have dedicated telephones form a separate provider and cell phones to ensure that they can communicate with the company and all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Application Service Providers (ASPs) in an emergency, or if the company's standard telephone provider experiences problems. This concludes the CIW v5 Foundations Basic Data Communications course. You have learned the fundamentals of basic data communications during this course.