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Parent Category: Networks
Category: Components
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Syllabus 

Network components; server, router, NIC, switch, modem; 11 ATAR 12 GEN

Background

For a network to work correctly it needs to have important items as listed above. If there is a breakdown in any one of these components, the network won't work.

Clients (people, school students) want to use a network to surf the web, conduct their jobs, be entertained, print out documents and much more.

Modem

  • brings the internet into the network, eg a school,  via a phone line
  • is the converter from analogue to digital (modulates the analogue phone line signal to digital so the computer can understand it)
  • is the converter from digital back to analogue (demodulates the digital signal back into analogue to go over the phone line)
  • Why is a modem needed? If the whole internet was digital from your computer to all other computers on the internet, then a modem would not be needed. But it isn't, so we need the conversion from analogue to digital to occur.

Router

  • connects networks
  • connects network from one location to a network from a different location
  • ie connects a school network to the public telephone network
  • it connects via an ip address eg 10.201.201.1

Server

  • the server is a computer
  • checks username and passwords so only authorised users can access the network
  • can have many servers
  • a server for authentication ie check username and passwords
  • a server for supplying the internet, proxy server
  • a server to supply printing
  • a server to save files for clients on the network
  • it is the server that distributes these resources to the clients (people)

Switch

  • is a device that a room full of computers can connect to
  • it is the next step in the chain from the classroom computer NIC
  • ie from NIC, through cabling to the switch
  • the switch then sends the data to server. (often with optic fibre)

Network Interface Card (NIC)

  • connects a computer to a network
  • in a desktop computer it is located where the ethernet cable clicks in the back
  • in windows computers it often has lights, green, orange which flicker when data is transmitting

 For You To Do

  1. Create a graphic with labels to describe a network with the above components

 Learn more from wikipedia
 
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