Monday, August 09, 2010

Lan and Wan – Basic Concepts

A brief introduction about LAN and WAN.

LAN – Local Area Networks – is used to refer to networks that are limited to a particular/single site, building or location; connecting network devices over a relatively short distance (e.g. office building, school, or gome etc…). LANs are used when an organization remains within a single location, however when the organization expands beyond their own premises/location, a WAN is needed to geographically network the separate areas of the organization together. Sometimes one building will contain a few small LANs (e.g. one per room), with a LAN occasionally spanning a group of nearby buildings.

The network topology of LAN is peer-to-peer networking, where the resources are shared between terminals. In general, LAN networks are cheaper as they do no rely on leased lines and utilize less hardware.

In addition to operating in a limited space, LANs are also typically owned, controlled, and managed by a single person/organization. They tend to use certain connectivity technologies such as Ethernet and Token Ring (primarily)...Read more>>


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