Local Area Network (LAN)

Teacher: Dr.Leung Student: Matin Jalilov Course: CIS 345

LAN
Local-Area-Network(LAN) : It is a relatively small network (compared to a WAN) covering small areas like a room, an office, a building, a campus etc. If you connect two computers for sharing data, you have a LAN. The number of computers connected on a LAN may be up to several hundreds, but most of the time, LANs are made up of more or less a dozen machines. To connect two computers, you may only link them using a cable. If you want to connect more, then you need a special device called a hub, which acts like a distribution and link point. Cables from the different computers LAN cards meet at the hub. If you want to connect your LAN to the Internet, then you need a router instead of a hub. Using a hub is the most common and easiest way of setting up a LAN. There are however other network layouts, called topologies. You dont necessarily have only computers on a LAN. We tend to use certain connectivity technologies,
primarily Ethernet and Token Ring. Most of local area networks are built with relatively inexpensive

hardware such as Ethernet cables, network adapters, and hubs. Wireless LAN and other more advanced LAN hardware options also exist. You can also connect printers and other devices which you can share. For instance, if you connect a printer on a LAN and configure it to be shared among all users on the LAN, print jobs can be sent to that printer from all computers on the LAN.

Ethernet
Ethernet is a physical and data link layer technology for local area networks (LANs). Ethernet was invented by engineer Robert Metcalfe. When first widely deployed in the 1980s, Ethernet supported a maximum theoretical data rate of 10 megabits per second (Mbps). Later, so-called "Fast Ethernet" standards increased this maximum data rate to 100 Mbps. Today, Gigabit Ethernet technology further extends peak performance up to 1000 Mbps. Higher level network protocols like Internet Protocol (IP) use Ethernet as their transmission medium. Data travels over Ethernet inside protocol units called frames. The run length of individual Ethernet cables is limited to roughly 100 meters, but Ethernet networks can be easily extended to link entire schools or office buildings using network bridge devices.

Token Ring
Token Ring is a data link technology for local area networks (LANs). It operates at layer 2 of the OSI model. Unlike all other standard forms of LAN interconnects, Token Ring maintains one or more common data frames that continuously circulates through the network. These frames are shared by all connected devices on the network as follows: 1. a frame (packet) arrives at the next device in the ring sequence 2. that device checks whether the frame contains a message addressed to it. If so, the device removes the message from the frame. If not, the frame is empty (called a token frame). 3. the device holding the frame decides whether to send a message. If so, it inserts message data into the token frame and issues it back onto the LAN. If not, the device releases the token frame for the next device in sequence to pick up 4. the above steps are repeated continuosly for all devices in the token ring

Characteristics of Token Ring Networks Token Ring was developed by IBM during the 1980s as an alternative to Ethernet. Starting in the 1990s, it significantly decreased in popularity and gradually was phased out of business networks as Ethernet technology began to dominate LAN designs. Standard Token Ring supports only up to 16 Mbps. In the 1990s, an industry initiative called High Speed Token Ring developed technology for extending Token Ring to 100 Mbps equal to Ethernet, but insufficient interest in the marketplace existed for HSTR products and the technology was abandoned.

WLAN
WLAN(Wireless LAN) provides wireless network communication over short distances using radio or infrared signals instead of traditional network cabling.A WLAN typically extends an existing wired local area network. WLANs are built by attaching a device called the access point (AP) to the edge of the wired network. Clients communicate with the AP using a wireless network adapter similar in function to a traditional Ethernet adapter. Network security remains an important issue for WLANs. Random wireless clients must usually be prohibited from joining the WLAN. Technologies like WEP raise the level of security on wireless networks to rival that of traditional wired networks. Example: For WLANs that connect to the Internet, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) technology allows Web content to be more easily downloaded to a WLAN and rendered on wireless clients like cell phones and PDAs.

VLAN
Virtual LAN (VLAN) refers to a group of logically networked devices on one or more LANs that are configured so that they can communicate as if they were attached to the same wire, when in fact they are located on a number of different LAN segments. Because VLANs are based on logical instead of physical connections, it is very flexible for user/host management, bandwidth allocation and resource optimization. There are the following types of Virtual LANs: 1. Port-Based VLAN: each physical switch port is configured with an access list specifying membership in a set of VLANs. 2. MAC-based VLAN: a switch is configured with an access list mapping individual MAC addresses to VLAN membership. 3. Protocol-based VLAN: a switch is configured with a list of mapping layer 3 protocol types to VLAN membership - thereby filtering IP traffic from nearby end-stations using a particular protocol such as IPX. 4. ATM VLAN - using LAN Emulation (LANE) protocol to map Ethernet packets into ATM cells and deliver them to their destination by converting an Ethernet MAC address into an ATM address.

Why Use VLANs? Traditional network designs use routers to create broadcast domains and limit broadcasts between multiple sub-nets. This prevents broadcast floods in larger networks from consuming resources or causing unintentional denials of service unnecessarily. Unfortunately, the traditional network design methodology has some design flaws.

Geographic Focus Traditional network designs focus on physical locations of equipment and personnel for addressing and LAN segment placement. Because of this there are a few significant drawbacks:

Network segments for physically disjointed organizations cannot be part of the same address space. Each physical location must be addressed independently and be part of its own broadcast domain. This can force personnel to be located in a central location or to have additional latency or connectivity shortfalls.

Relocating personnel and departments can become difficult, especially if the original location retains its network segments. Relocated equipment will have to be reconfigured based on the new network configuration.

Topology
Think of a topology as a network's virtual shape or structure. This shape does not necessarily correspond to the actual physical layout of the devices on the network. For example, the computers on a home LAN may be arranged in a circle in a family room, but it would be highly unlikely to find a ring topology there. Network topologies are categorized into the following basic types: 1. bus 2. ring 3. star 4. tree 5. mesh

Bus Topology: Bus networks use a common backbone to connect all devices. A single cable , the backbone functions as a shared communication medium that devices attach or tap into with an interface connector. A device wanting to communicate with another device on the network sends a broadcast message onto the wire that all other devices see, but only the intended recipient actually accepts and processes the message.

Ring Topology: In a ring network, every device has exactly two neighbors for communication purposes. All messages travel through a ring in the same direction. A failure in any cable or device breaks the loop and can take down the entire network. To implement a ring network, one typically uses FDDI, SONET, or Token Ring technology.

Star Topology: Many home networks use the star topology. A star network features a central connection point called a "hub node" that may be a network hub, switch or router. Devices typically connect to the hub with Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) Ethernet. Compared to the bus topology, a star network generally requires more cable, but a failure in any star network cable will only take down one computer's network access and not the entire LAN.

Tree Topology: Tree topologies integrate multiple star topologies together onto a bus. In its simplest form, only hub devices connect directly to the tree bus, and each hub functions as the root of a tree of devices. This bus/star hybrid approach supports future expandability of the network much better than a bus or a star alone.

Mesh Topology: Mesh topologies involve the concept of routes. Unlike each of the previous topologies, messages sent on a mesh network can take any of several possible paths from source to destination. Some WANs, most notably the Internet, employ mesh routing. A mesh network in which every device connects to every other is called a full mesh. As shown in the illustration below, partial mesh networks also exist in which some devices connect only indirectly to others.

Local Area Network also known as LAN, plays an important role in our new IT generation. We use is it more and more, in the offices, homes, buildings, schools. It gives highly secure connection between computers in our days. Complex technology that put us step ahead into future. This evolution of technology is still ongoing and rapidly therefore we need to catch up with it. This technology(LAN) revolutionized for years in order to become perfect bound connector between computers, printers, PDAs, smartphones and etc.