{"id":15,"date":"2023-10-23T14:04:08","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T14:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ledburyhunt.co.uk\/?p=15"},"modified":"2023-10-18T14:34:23","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T14:34:23","slug":"home-and-small-office-networking-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ledburyhunt.co.uk\/home-and-small-office-networking-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Home and Small Office Networking Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"
So what is a network?<\/p>\n
A network supports the interconnection of many devices and a protocol for ensuring they can communicate with one another in the most effective way. The best way to understand how networks work is to visualise each element of the network as a layer,Home and Small Office Networking Guide Articles one on top of another. The conceptual model that describes this layered model is known as the OSI Reference Model, which has seven layers. All Network professionals use this in their day to day design and engineering work.<\/p>\n
For our purposes we can simplify it into three layers, going from the bottom up there is:<\/p>\n
1. The Physical layer \u2013 the cable between machines (typically called 100BaseT, uses four pairs), the card in the back of your machine (802.3 Ethernet NIC) or Wireless Networking adapter (802.11n etc) etc.<\/p>\n
2. Data Link, Network and Transport Layers \u2013 Responsible for managing the addressing, routing and packaging of data around the network. Includes the Internet protocol (TCP\/IP), gaming and file transfer based protocols (such as UDP), and VPN networking from home to your office (PPTP or IPSec)<\/p>\n
3. And the Session, Presentation and Application Layers \u2013 file sharing and database access in the office (NetBIOS, Named Pipes, NFS), Internet browsing (HTTP, DNS), eMail (MIME, SMTP, POP3) and securing Internet banking or shopping (SSL\/TLS)<\/p>\n
Breaking it out into layers like this helps us understand when we buy software or hardware which layer(s) it works at and therefore what it can provide for us. Is it providing connectivity, access to another Wide Area Network (WAN, i.e. for the Internet), security or access to my own Local Area Network (LAN, i.e. for access to a printer). It\u2019s extremely useful when diagnosing problems with networks.
\nNetwork Addressing<\/p>\n