History, Advantages and Types of Networking

History of networking

Networking is term used for referring, interrelation of computer devices/ hardware and together make them a system which could share information and files using communication channels. We can see roots of networking back in early 40’s when a Teletype device was used by George S. for sending information from one location to another. In the decade of 50’s military equipment was connected by means of networking for War purposes. Era of 1960’s remained very a successful tenure in the field of networking. In this year an airline connected two main frame computers for making their ticketing system online. In 1964 timesharing system was introduced and in same year telephone connections were made online successfully. In early 90’s century home broadband system was introduced. Since early 90’s every passing day brought new innovation in the field of networking and technology.

Now-a-day networking is a very common thing and every individual involved with technology and internet is somehow getting benefited from the miracles of networking. Networking could achieve small goals like sharing data files in office environment and playing online server based games for handling complex war systems and managing confidential information.

Advantages of networking

There are dozens of advantages associated with computer networking which has brought efficiency and accuracy in several professional traits of life. Few of these advantages are “increased ability of file and data sharing without occupying any extra space and it helps to avoid filling all devices’ space with one data file for making it available to all people who need access of it”, “resource sharing is another major advantage which networking has, by means of networking several devices like printer, scanners and copying machines etc. are made available on few clicks”, “reducing need of buying several internet connections for different devices is also a one of the biggest advantage of networking; one internet connection could be shared at all devices like all available computers, laptops, tablets, mobile phones and other devices by means of networking”, “networking multiplies storage capacity by connecting several devices and by the ability of accessing data and pictures saved at remote locations i.e. everything is not needed to be stored at your own device but you can use data stored at any device included in your network” and “networking helped to establish control system by means of which only authorized persons were allowed to access data”.

Improved in increased communication between different stakeholders at different forums is also a one of the major advantages of networking which could not be ignored. For example in a business setup all stakeholders like suppliers, customers and business managers could access the same information at a time by few clicks. Errors in data management and copying could also be reduced by means of it.

Networking has helped to achieve true spirit of globalization by availability of data all across the globe. Now any one file saved at computer in any part of the world could be accessed in the other part of the world without being changed.

Types of conventional wire based networking

Based on scope, scale and design area networking could be differentiated into many types; few of the most popular are given below:

1 - Local Area Networking or LAN is networking which is designed to connect devices present in a closed system or we could say the devices which exist physically at the near distances from each other. The very common example of this type of networking is the networking computers of one office which are usually placed in one premises. LAN system is mostly controlled by one person that is the IT manager of the company. This type of networking helps to improve the efficiency of work at offices by sharing similar database, reduces cost by sharing expensive peripheral devices rather than buying multiple, it reduces work lethargy by reducing the effort of employees for copying their data or typing it again and again to devices connected to printers or scanners etc. and it could make the internal audits and managing control systems easy by unifying all data through networking.

2 - Wide Area Networking or WAN, as depicts through its name is used for wider areas than office or homes. It is used for achieving networking at city, country or continent level. Currently the internet we use is the largest WAN of the world. This is achieved through involving several routers for routing messages. By means of routers LAN is connected to it. No one single person could claim owner ship over the WAN there are multiple mangers of it.

3 - MAN or metropolitan area networking is a type of networking between LAN and WAN. It is larger than LAN but smaller than WAN.

4 - There are several other types of networking which includes Campus Area Networking for schools and universities, storage area networking, system area networking and Personal Area Networking.