Types Of Networks

Types of Networks

The most commonly known network to us students and "young" ones is LAN or Local Area Network. Why? This is because of the various computer games such as Counter-Strike which was widely played by all a couple of years back. In a local establishment such as network cafй's, they use LAN to interconnect each PC in order for us to play with and against each other. For us, it is considered a very time-spent pastime. It basically works like this, there is one computer which is the server that enables all the computers to be interconnected. In other establishments such as a small work place or administrations, LANs provide for the sharing of expensive hardware resources. An example of this would be a high-speed printer, high capacity hard disk storage, and data files or a database. Any authorized user of the network can access all these facilities.

A WAN or Wide Area Network is quite similar to LAN except that it covers a much wider geographic area. Going further into detail, networks beyond the length of 6000 ft. are classified as WANs. Furthermore, WANs are used to connect LANs together.

The idea of Smart Buildings are becoming increasingly popular now in the US. One establishment that uses this is the Seattle Library. Smart Buildings are to be taken in its literal meaning, smart. The key word is automatic. These buildings are like robots that automatically do what is best at a given particular time. For example, when the sun hits at 3pm, the centralized airconditioning will sort of be unbalanced as it will be hotter on one side due to the unbalanced heat of the sun. Now, what a smart building would do is automatically increase the aiconditioning on that side thus balancing the room temperature. This is just one of the many great things that a smart building is capable of doing. These buildings are said to be very efficient and in the long-run energy-saving