LAN

LAN is a Local Area Network. A LAN Is most commonly used in a office or home. It is a small network that is contained within one building.

PAN
PAN is a Personal Area Network. This is used on mobile devices. This has a very small and limited range.

WAN
WAN is a Wide Area Network. A Wan covers a large area and is two or more LANs connected together. It is most commonly used in large sites that have more than 1 building.

Internet
Internet is a large amount of networks all interconnected together. The Internet is World Wide.

The Mesh topology is used for full connectivity. This has high levels of redundancy meaning most computers will not go without a connection if a cable fails. There would always be an alternative route for a packet to take to get to a computer. This is using computers only to connect each other together so there is no centralised device.

The Star topology is used for having a centralised device to control network activity. Each computer would be connected to a centralised device, like a switch or a hub. If the centralised fails the computers will no longer be connected to each other. It is also very easy to troubleshoot because each computer would be associated to a certain port and cable. Using the star network the is minimal chance of a collision by using a switch as a centralised device. The bus topology uses a shared media. It is very cheap and easy to install, It is also very cheap and easy to extend. If the shared media has a problem all the computers will no longer be connected and be separated into two bus networks depending where the fault is in the cable. The problem with using a shared media is that there is a very high risk of a collision and why CSMA/CA is used.

The Ring topology uses cables that run from device to device. It is very slow as when it goes from devive to device the packet gets processed and assigned new token. The Ring topology therefore use Token Passing. Due to the topology not having a centralised device, if a computer is not turned on or malfunctioning there will be problems within the entire network. Also adding, moving and removing devices from the network can cause problems in the network.

The Tree/Hierarchal uses one centralised network device that branches off to other network devices, e.g. Switches. The first device on the network is known as the Root device. This network design allows you to add/remove host with ease. If the centralised device fails, packets cannot be sent from one sub network to another.

The Line topology uses a single connection between host to host. The Line topology is very similar to the bus topology but does not use a shared media and it uses technology's like the Ring network. The line network supports a Peer-to-Peer set up, but with peer-to-peer it is limited to using 11 devices. The problem with the line topology if a computer fails the network also fails.