FREE online courses on Internet Network of Networks - What is Internet - Network of Networks

Internet is said to be network of networks. But what is a network? Answer to this question is that a data communication system that interconnects various computers such that the users can share information between themselves as if the information on the other computers seems to be present on their computers. The computers may be connected using physical cables or through dial up lines using modems or they may use combination of these. Networks are regarded as  Local Area Networks (LAN), Wide Area Networks (WAN),  Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) etc. Now-a-days LAN are also termed as Intranets if they use the TCP/IP and HTTP protocols to share the information between the hosts.

 

Since the Internet is a WAN which spans across countries and continents and is made up of individual LANs and WANs, it is termed as network of networks. Imagine a corporate wide network of a multinational company. Each department may have their own LAN which allows the users to share files and printers etc. Each department then may be connected to a corporate server through which all departments can exchange information between themselves. All regional offices in a country may be connected to this corporate server which then may be connected to their overseas offices through Internet backbone. In India VSNL provides the backbone to connect to Internet. Internet contains heterogeneous networks which might use different  operating systems, different hardware etc., but as long as these networks adhere to a common set of protocols to exchange information, it does not matter what operating system or hardware they are using.