Question

Describe the hardware components of an office network and their individual functions. Provide an image to illustrate your architecture

Answer 1

Basic Network Hardware

1.Routers: It is a networking device that forwarding data from one device to another. It perform the traffic directing functions. A packet is typically forwarded from one router to another router through the networks that constitute an inter network until it reaches its destination node.

Functions of Router

The router has to function Forwarding Function and Filtering Function .

1. Forwarding Function - This function allows you choose the router to reserve the IP header information and send their packets over to the router .In forwarding function the most important is to resolve the route, process and forward the IP address to the next router.
2. Filtering Function - Filtering Function is used as a dumping for a specific network. It is used to filter the packet and pass through a router.This function is different from forwarding function as it work to filter if two networks connect through a router than it communicate using UDP(User Datagram Protocol) packets and filter as it pass the signals to one another by filtering process.

2.Repeaters, Hubs, and Switches

Repeaters, hubs and switches connect network devices together so that they can function as a single segment.

A repeater receives a signal and regenerates it before re-transmitting so that it can travel long distances .An important point to be noted about repeaters is that they do not amplify the signal. When the signal becomes weak, they copy the signal bit by bit and regenerate it at the original strength. It is a 2 port device.

A hub is a multi port repeater having several input-output ports, so that the input at any port is available at every other port. In other words, collision domain of all hosts connected through Hub remains one. Also, they do not have intelligence to find out best path for data packets which leads to inefficiencies and wastage.

A switch receives data from a port, then uses packet switching to resolve the destination device and then it forwards the data to the particular destination, rather than it as a hub. In other words, switch divides collision domain of hosts, but broadcast domain remains same.

3. Bridge – A bridge operates at data link layer. It is a repeater with add on functionality of filtering content by reading the MAC addresses of source and destination. Bridge is also used for interconnecting two LAN working on the same protocol. It has a single input and single output port.

Types of Bridges

• Transparent Bridges :- In which the stations are completely unaware of the bridge’s existence i.e. whether or not a bridge is added or deleted from the network reconfiguration of the stations is unnecessary. These bridges makes use of two processes that are  bridge forwarding and bridge learning.
• Source Routing Bridges :- In these bridges, routing operation is performed by source station and the frame specifies which route to follow. The hot can discover frame by sending a special frame called discovery frame, which is used to spreads through the entire network using all possible paths to destination.

4. Gateway – A gateway, as the name suggests it is a passage to connect two networks together that may work upon different networking models. They basically works as the messenger that take data from one system, interpret it, and transfer it to another system. They are also called protocol converters and they can operate at any network layer. They are generally more complex than router or switch.

5. Brouter – It is also known as bridging router is a device which contain features of both bridge and router. Brouter can work either at data link layer or at network layer. Working as router, it is capable of routing packets across networks and working as bridge, it is capable of filtering local area network traffic. So it can have both the features of bridge and router.