Question

Advantages and Disadvantages of Networks. Distinguish between the advantages and disadvantages of using computing networks. You will also get familiarized with the terms associated with networks. Provide a detailed description of situations in which the use of networks benefited you as well as situations where the use of networks was a disadvantage. Share at least one situation for each case. In addition, research the following terminologies associated with networks and provide a detailed description, along with diagrams, for each. Explain the terms in your own words. Network models Network topologies (Hint: The term "network topology" here refers to how network components are arranged or laid out in a network.) NOS Also, explain how they relate together.

Answer 1

Computer Networks: A computer network is a set of computers or systems and other computational devices which are grouped together through the communicational channels in a certain range. By these networks, we can share the data to many users with the help of the internet through e-mail or by printers etc. Easy to access anywhere at any time. In these networks, there are many types of networks i.e., LAN(Local Area Network), WAN(Wide Area Network), PAN(Personal Area Network) etc. By using these networks there are many advantages as well as disadvantages.

Advantages:

i) If we want to communicate with our friend who is very far from us, then we communicate with him very easily by using these types of networks.

ii) Provides security to the users who have the authentication and provides services to them only. So unauthorized modifications are not allowed.

iii) Resource Sharing is also very easy. It means when 3 or more people are connected in a network they can also share the resources by printers, scanners etc.

iv) It provides flexible access to users. In detail, if one employee is in the network and started his work on a project in his own system then suddenly an error occurs but he needs to complete the work so that he can access it another employee's laptop and also he continues the same project as before because he is connected to a network.

v) System updates or upgrades are very easier when we are connected in a network.

Disadvantages:

i) In case if we want to connect to a network of our own, we need to maintain some servers and database. If we want to maintain we need to buy servers. They are very expensive.

ii) If it is a small network we can maintain easily. If it is a complex network we need to appoint one administrator in order to maintain all these properly.

iii) If we are using Wide Area Network(WAN), there is a chance of cyber attacking. So we need to protect our network containing our data. So we need to maintain a great security firewall.

iv) If the virus attacked one system which is not in a network it can be removed easily for one system. If 10 or 20 computers which are in a network then one system is attacked by virus then the other systems also got affected by that virus because they are connected in a network.

v) If suddenly a disaster appears and crashes all the systems due to the short circuit, then the file server breaks down completely. We could not able to access our mail also. So we are better to use separate servers for each of the work. But maintaining these isolated servers might be very expensive.