network

	Description	Physical	Logical
LAN(Local Area Network	A local area network (LAN) supplies networking capability to a group of computers in close proximity to each other such as in an office building, a school, or a home. A LAN is useful for sharing resources like files, printers, games or other applications. A LAN in turn often connects to other LANs, and to the Internet or other WAN.		192.168.1.1
WAN(Wide Area NEtwork)	A WAN spans a large geographic area, such as a state, province or country. WANs often connect multiple smaller networks, such as local area networks (LANs) or metro area networks (MANs)		66.117.136.6
MAN	A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a large computer network that usually spans a city or a large campus. A MAN usually interconnects a number of local area networks (LANs) using a high-capacity backbone technology, such as fiber-optical links, and provides up-link services to wide area networks (or WAN) and the Internet.		208.25.127.254

toplogy

	Design	Cable Type	Speed of Cable	Advantage	Disadvantage
Bus		Coaxial	10mbps-100mbps	Easy to install and configure Inexpensive Easily extended	Performance decreases Weak signals Difficult troubleshooting
Ring		Fiber optic	100mbps-2gbps	Data is quickly transferred without a ‘bottle neck’. (very fast, all data traffic is in the same direction) The transmission of data is relatively simple as packets travel in one direction only. Adding additional nodes has very little impact on bandwidth It prevents network collisions because of the media access method or architecture required.	Data packets must pass through every computer between the sender and recipient therefore this makes it slower. If any of the nodes fail then the ring is broken and data cannot be transmitted successfully. It is difficult to troubleshoot the ring. Because all stations are wired together, to add a station you must shut down the network temporarily. In order for all computers to communicate with each other, all computers must be turned on. Total dependence upon the one cable
Star		Utp (unsheilded twisted pair	10mbps-100mbps	Good performance easy to set up and to expand. Any non-centralised failure will have very little effect on the network, whereas on a ring network it would all fail with one fault	Expensive to install Extra hardware required
Mesh		Power lines,phone lines and coaxial table	UP to 1Gbit/s	a. Enhance for error tolerance provided by redundant links. b. Easy to troubleshoot.	a. Difficult to install and maintain. b. Expensive