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Now which physical components make up a network there are different types of devices that can be part

of a network.

A network could be as simple as two PCs connected to each other using a cable or as complex as thousands

of devices that connect through different types of media including copper fiber and wireless.

So let's look at some of the components that you'll find in a typical network today.

The first one is endpoints.

These include devices such as PCs or computers printers tablets servers phones and other devices that

users use.

In other words these are devices that either retrieve or provide information they are used to send and

retrieve data as an example of PC or iPad could be used to connect to a web server to retrieve bank

account information.

Into connections these are the various components that connect the devices in a network.

They provide a means for data to travel from one point to another into connections include components

such as network interface cards or nix.

These translate to computer data into a format that can be transmitted over a wire network interface

card is a device that you plug a network cable into network media such as cables or wireless media provide

a means by which signals are transmitted from one network device to another electrical signals are used

in copper as an example light is used on fiber connections and the A is used in wireless transmissions

connect connectors provide connection points for media.

The most common type of connector is the plug on the end of a network cable which is an RJ 45 connector.

This is very similar to an analog phone connector will be discussing connections and a lot more detail

throughout the course of that kind of device that you'll typically encounter is switches.

These are devices that endpoints such as PCs file servers and printers typically connect to.

They provide intelligent switching of data within a local area network routers connect and networks

and intelligently choose the best paths between networks.

Their main function is to run traffic from one network to another.

This could be as simple as connecting your home network to the internet your home network may be running

wireless so that your iPad or iPhone can connect to the wireless network but when connecting to the

Internet various technologies could be used including cable DSL copper ether net or fiber connections

wireless LAN devices allow wireless devices such as computers printers tablets such as iPads to connect

to a wireless network a device called a wireless access point is typically connected back to a wide

infrastructure so that your traffic from your wireless device such as an iPad can be sent to a physical

server will now discuss the characteristics of a network.

When you purchase a new PC or a new phone one of the things that you're going to look at is the specifications

of that device.

So on a PC as an example how much memory does the PC have.

What's the you of the PC What operating system does it come with.

There are various specifications which we can then use to compare one PC with another.

You might do the same with a phone so you'd look at the characteristics or specifications of a phone

and compare that to another phone on the same way.

Networks have characteristics which can be used to understand how a network operates a computer network

has a list of characteristics which can help you describe its performance and structure understanding

each of these characteristics is important.

If you want to understand how well a network is designed and how you could improve the performance of

a network so the first term to understand is topology networks have both a physical and logical topology.

The physical topology is the actual physical arrangement of the components of a network such as its

cables network devices and end points.

The logical topology however may be very different to the physical topology.

The logical topology describes the path over which data is transferred in a network.

You could also look at the physical topology describing how the network devices are actually interconnected

with one another using cables and wires.

A logical topology however describes how the network devices appear to network users.

As an example you may have a one switch with 24 users connected to that switch.

That's a physical topology but when you use a V lands or virtual local area networks the logical topology

changes and villans allow you to create multiple virtual networks running on that one switch which changes

the flow of data from a user's point of view.