Networks

Sunday, January 27, 2013 3:50 PM

Network Speed The speed of a network is given in bits. For example, a 100 Mbit (Megabit) network transmits data at 100 bits per second (100,000,000 bits/second). A 1 Gigabit network transmits 10 times faster than a 100Mbit network connection. Connection speed is independent of the size of the file being downloaded. Ex: A 200 Megabyte file is transferred over a 100 Megabit network and then over a 1 Gigabit network. The time to transfer the file is: Answer: 10 times slower over the 100 Megabit network. To figure out how fast a file can be transferred over the network, make sure to convert the file size first. 1 byte = 8 bits. Once you've converted, divide the file size by the network speed. Note that network headers that contain information about various network protocols (IP address, MAC (media access control) address, ports being used) require some bandwidth and will increase the number of bits being transferred; however, this additional number of bits will not be significant enough to alter your estimate. Ex: A file of size 1 gigabyte is to be transferred over a connection of 100 Megabits per second. Assuming that the connection is not being shared, what is the best estimate for the amount of time required to transfer the file? Work: First, convert the file size. 1Gbytes = 8Gbits. The network is not being shared, so the full bandwidth can be used. Now you divide file size by network speed: 8000Mbits / 100Mbits per second = 80 seconds. Network Protocols There are several different types of network protocols, and each serves a different purpose. They are as follows: DHCP - Dynamic Host Control Protocol: used for a client machine to obtain an IP address from another server HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol: used to coordinate the transfer of data over the world wide web DNS - Domain Name Service: used to identify which computer has which IP address; provides mapping between URLs and IP addresses ARP - Address Resolution Protocol: used to identify which machine has which MAC (Media Access Control) address; does so when the IP address is already known SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol: used for sending and receiving email Ethernet - involves moving packets using the MAC address along a LAN Routing - involves moving packets whose IP address is already known Types of Connections There are many different types of connections. Here are a few you have to know: Asymmetric connections - allows for the maximum amount of data that the client can receive to be greater than it can send; this is usually used by broadband providers because they expect their customers to request more data than they send in general. Programming Languages Involved in Web Pages There are several different languages involved in making web pages, and they each do something
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There are several different languages involved in making web pages, and they each do something different. Here is a rundown of the basic ones: HTML - Hypertext Markup Language, used for formatting the webpage (but it's not technically a programming language - it does not dynamically change the web page) Perl PHP JavaScript ASP (Active Server Pages) Network Architectures Client / Server - centralized Peer-to-Peer - decentralized, distributed Master / Slave - centralized Ad-Hoc - decentralized, distributed

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