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WAN
INTERNET
The beginnings of the Internet can be traced back to the 1960s when the United States funded
research by its military agencies to develop a fault-tolerant and robust distributed network of
computers. The Internet is now global and in theory can be accessed by anyone who can get
access from an Internet service provider
The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used in everyday speech without much
distinction. However, the Internet and the World Wide Web are not one and the same. The
Internet is a global data communications system. It is a hardware and software infrastructure that
provides connectivity between computers. In contrast, the Web is one of the services
communicated via the Internet. It is a collection of interconnected documents and other
resources, linked by hyperlinks and URL. The Internet is also often simply referred to as the net.
INTRANET
EXTRANET
An extranet is somewhat very similar to an intranet. Extranets are designed specifically to give
external, limited access to certain files of your computer systems to:
Both intranets and extranets are owned, operated and controlled by one organization. However,
the difference between intranets and extranets is defined in terms of who has access to the
private network and the geographical reach of that network. Intranets allow only members of the
organization to access the network, while an extranet allows persons from outside the
organization (i.e. business partners and customers) to access the network. Usually, network
access is managed through the administration of usernames and passwords, which are also used
to determine which parts of the extranet a particular user can access.
The Internet, extranets, and intranets all rely on the same TCP/IP technologies. However, they
are different in terms of the levels of access they allow to various users inside and outside the
organization and the size of the network. An intranet allows for restricted access to only
members of an organization; an extranet expands that access by allowing non-members such as
suppliers and customers to use company resources. The difference between the Internet and
extranets is that while the extranet allows limited access to non-members of an organization, the
Internet generally allows everyone to access all network resources
For Example, The most common type of local area network is an Ethernet LAN. The smallest
home LAN can have exactly two computers; a large LAN can accommodate many thousands of
computers. Many LANs are divided into logical groups called subnets. An Internet Protocol (IP)
"Class A" LAN can in theory accommodate more than 16 million devices organized into subnets.
Metropolitan Area Network is a data network designed for a town or city. In terms of geographic
breadth, MANs are larger than local-area networks (LANs), but smaller than wide-area networks
(WANs). MANs are usually characterized by very high-speed connections using fiber optical
cable or other digital media.
“A Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is a large computer network that spans a metropolitan area
or campus. Its geographic scope falls between a WAN and LAN. MANs provide Internet
connectivity for LANs in a metropolitan region, and connect them to wider area networks like the
Internet”
The wide area network, often referred to as a WAN, is a communications network that makes use
of existing technology to connect local computer networks into a larger working network that
may cover both national and international locations. A WAN is a geographically-dispersed
collection of LANs. A network device called a router connects LANs to a WAN. This is in
contrast to both the local area network and the metropolitan area network, which provides
communication within a restricted geographic area. Here is how the wide area network functions,
and why it is so important to communications today. As the term implies, a WAN spans a large
physical distance.
Companies also make good use of the wide area network as well. Internal functions such as
sales, production and development, marketing and accounting can also be shared with authorized
locations through this sort of broad area network application. The concept of a wide area network
as a means of taking individual location based computer networks and using them to create a
unified computer network for the entire corporation means that employees can work from just
about anywhere. Should one facility be damaged or rendered inaccessible due to natural disaster,
employees simply move to another location where they can access the unified network, and keep
on working. A WAN differs from a LAN in several important ways. Most WANs (like the
Internet) are not owned by any one organization but rather exist under collective or distributed
ownership and management. WANs tend to use technology like ATM, Frame Relay and X.25 for
connectivity over the longer distances.