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Archive 1

Page Image...

I used the same image that is on the Network topology page because I don't have any images of a computer network but I'll try to find a small photo or something that is in the public domain. --mlewis000 05:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

some editing started.

Hello group. I've started some editing and still in the process. Please go through it. comments are welcome. :) Also, if you have any ideas, go to www.encyclopediadramatica.com/ and give me a note :). --Electron Kid 10:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Page creation...

I created this page because it was a redirect page to computer networking, which is the science of computer networks not the computer network itself - I tried to write this page from the viewpoint of what a computer network is and not from the viewpoint of what computer networking is since they are two different subjects. Also, it seemed inappropriate that someone would have to search through a large article about computer networking with more advanced topics in it just to find out what a computer network is. -- Tmlewis000 05:46, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


Computer networking is just a dial up connection with in the systems—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.210.11.22 (talk • contribs) 2007-03-19T06:05:23.

More specifically, one very primitive way to create a computer network is by using dial up connections between the systems. But what does this have to do with page creation? Riick 22:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

See: http://www.networkingboards.com

I noticed that the same topics are discussed in the two different articles (computer network and computer networking) and, what is worse, in different ways. For example, in the current article, we have PAN, CAN (does this definition really exists?), MAN and WAN network types. In the computer networking article, there is LAN, WAN, WLAN and WWAN. Which one is right? I think that the same information must not be repeated in different articles. --Ale murakami 20:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

static & dynamic IPs

I removed the section about static and dynamic IPs. It was extremely lengthy and much too advanced to be included as a topic in this already confusing article. IP addressing is not a basic component of Computer Networks, it is an addressing scheme used in TCP/IP Networks specifically. Although IP networks are very prevalent in todays networks, I do not believe it needs to be addressed in this article. --Pchov 20:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. This article shouldn't really be going deeper than osi layer 2 on the technical side. Good call. Porkrind 21:29, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Switches

When I see the persistence of the marketing term "switch", as opposed to the more specific "bridge", "router", or higher-layer device, I keep shaking my head. Because switch is so ill-defined, it generates much hand-waving.

To stay at a high level, "network interconnect device", which is used generally in RFC 2544, serves the purpose of suggesting that the "information highway" has "interchanges", without getting into the frustrating and confusing discussion of layering. Most layering discussions, in any event, are forced -- they try to coerce protocols not designed against the OSI reference model to fit neatly into a layer, amputating random limbs that won't fit.

Unfortunately, there are too many articles, such as computer network, switch (network), switch (multilayer) that try to be technical without a solid foundation. I did major overhauls to things such as "router", but I'm not sure where to start with some of the articles that base themselves in generalities or marketing terms. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Justification for calling the experts...

I'm adding a request for the experts to the top of the page.

  1. The article is awash with buzzwords and concepts from times past, and they are alongside current buzzwords and concepts with no line drawn between them.
  2. Concepts are explained incompletely or inappropriately.
  3. Items in lists that do not belong.
  4. Straight up inaccuracies.

I will of course help out as time will let me. Porkrind 13:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

This article still has way too many technical terms for such a broad subject area. I think we should try and reduce the amount of times the article references the OSI model along with some other more advanced terms such as circuit switched networks, that kind of works fine in the main articles for a network switch, but here, it just clutters the simplicity of what this article should be (IMHO). This article seems to have grown very unwieldy and difficult to understand, it lacks a real direction as far as formating, language, and style of writing (much too technical). If no one objects, in the next couple of weeks, when I have time, I'm going to hack away a lot of the fluff. Sorry to anyone who's stuff I might edit away... --Pchov 03:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


I can help also -cmdeane


any person help me i done hardware & networking from jetking...im hazy wht can i do...my id is jas_annu@yahoo.com


I edited the article, but it is still definitely a stub. Will return to it later, if I have time. 38.100.34.2 18:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

This article still has way too many technical terms for such a broad subject area. I think we should try and reduce the amount of times the article references the OSI model along with some other more advanced terms such as circuit switched networks, that kind of works fine in the main articles for a network switch, but here, it just clutters the simplicity of what this article should be (IMHO). This article seems to have grown very unwieldy and difficult to understand, it lacks a real direction as far as formating, language, and style of writing (much too technical). If no one objects, in the next couple of weeks, when I have time, I'm going to hack away a lot of the fluff. Sorry to anyone who's stuff I might edit away... --Pchov 03:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


Major overhaul

I felt this article had too many complex topics that were being discussed for such a broad and basic subject. I hacked away much of the extraneous stuff and did some major rearranging:

  1. I completely removed some sections that were, although related to computer networks in one way or another, do not belong in this article and added them to the See also section. (Standards Organizations, Communication Techniques, Modes Of Data Transmission, Transmission Errors)
  2. Made a section for the debate over if two interconnected computers would be defined as a network.
  3. Rearranged the article from top to bottom based on relevancy
  4. I am absolutely amazed that this article didn't have a good explanation of a LAN! wtf?

--Pchov 22:33, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Good show, Pchov. Sometimes it takes a good spring cleaning to reawaken an article so messy that noone wanted to take it on. Porkrind 02:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


Under "Basic Hardware Components" only Network Bridge was tied to the OSI model. Either all the Basic Hardware Components need to be tied or none. I think it would be better to have all of them tied to the OSI model so I made the changes. Perhaps it would be better to create a Networking Hardware OSI table instead. Perhaps such a table would fit better under the OSI Model page with a link from here. This is the 1st article I have edited, but with some guidance I would be happy to help. Assuming that is the direction the group wishes to go in. Dap263 15:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the OSI Reference Model itself makes no references to repeaters, bridges, routers, tunnels, and application gateways. As opposed to the Internet model, in which routers are pervasive in architectural discussions, the OSI Reference Model is about end system to end system communications. Supplemental OSI documents, such as the Routeing [sic] Framework and the TR10000 Functional Profile discussion of generalized relays, and perhaps the Internal Organization of the Network Layer, do deal with them, but I'd be far more prone to tie discussion to IETF and IEEE models, not OSI. It's hard for me to stress strongly enough that real-world networks, even using ISO protocols, are not built around the simple 7-layer model, yet we continue to have great confusion caused by the overuse of the OSI model in introductory network education. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I am doing some research for some certifications and this exams love to make OSI model questions about hardware and protocols and tie it to the OSI model. Hence my editing. I agree with what you said FWIW. Dap263 20:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Certification test writers, unfortunately, love to ask questions that are easy to write and score, as opposed to having much to do with reality. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe this article has really lost it's direction. It either needs to be written as a highly technical article, or it needs to be more encyclopedic. We need to decide on a direction, this article has become unwieldy to edit and difficult to read. Do we want a technical description of Computer networks, or a simple and basic article which directs users who want more detailed information to appropriate articles? Right now I see it starting out as a basic description and then at random it dives into highly technical areas loosely related to computer networks (i.e.: dealing with power failures). I want to make some major changes, but before I start chopping away large sections and offending people, I would like to see a discussion on two topics: 1. What direction do we want with this article? 2. What would be considered relevant to Computer networks in general? Pchov 14:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Direction?

This article has become a juggernaut of an article. It has no direction. Who should this article be written for, the novice computer user, or a Network Engineering student looking for more in depth technical specifications? As of now, it's a mix of the two extremes. I think a good model to go by is the wiki article on Computers --Pchov 15:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Relevant topics to be included

Computer networking covers a broad area of disciplines from communications theory to electrical engineering. We can't possibly include everything about all the subjects and hardware related to computer networking, the article would grow to a massive size. We need to have a discussion about what to include and what can be left out. The major topic areas I think are necessary for this article include, Definition/classification, Types of networks, and some of the basic hardware. I do not see any need to go beyond a basic description for any of these sections, anything more should be directed to the main article for that particular topic. Technical details such as IEEE and ISO specifications are very well documented in many of the topics main article, I see no need to repeat them here. I also just noticed there is no History section. Computer networks have a diverse history dating back many decades and it would be a shame not to include that in this article. --Pchov 15:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't disagree. Indeed, I see this as a problem across quite a few articles on networking. In some of the books on networking that I've written, I start by drawing a magic cloud, and asking the sponsor to explain what kinds of users and servers are at the edges. To me, the starting point in networking is trying to establish what problem the network is trying to solve. Things like security, quality of service, scalability in terms of numbers of users and their geographic distribution (affecting routing, LANs, and mobility), and required level of availability aren't made very basic points here.
When designing, I need to know the requirements before I can decide which spells to cast on the magic clouds, and which daemons I need to summon. As the resident wizard, though, the summonings are my engineering problem. To draw an analogy to this article and the ones on network technology, this article, ideally, should deal with the problems that networks solve and the constraints that particular applications and requirements (e.g., high fault tolerance) impose. Other articles should address the summonings, or, in calmer terms, the nature of the technologies inside the cloud. Howard C. Berkowitz 14:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
I might add that the sources and references need to be rethought. For example, the Federal Standard 1037 glossary, probably because it is public domain and online, is used a good deal. From my perspective, I worked on 1037 in the Federal Telecommunications Standards Committee around 30 years ago, and I don't believe a lot of updating has gone into it.
In like manner, while textbooks or study guides for certifications may be readily available, they are, at best, secondary sources for many concepts. The primary sources are things like (easily available) IETF documents, and harder-to-get-free ISO/ITU documents. These, however, frequently, but not exclusively, deal with the magic inside the cloud, rather than what the cloud is to do. Still, some RFCs, especially things like Applicability Statement or Requirements RFCs, do consider the problem being solved. The Benchmarking Working Group (BMWG) does state ways of characterizing performance, with RFC 2544 as the starting point.
There is a shortage of references for requirements analysis and design. My colleague, Priscilla Oppenheimer, has written a second edition of Top-Down Network Design, which is excellent. See my user page for things I have written, and the www.nanog.org presentation archives for requirements aimed at ISPs and other service providers. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Fix Grammar so I Can Read Please

Notice this:

Hubs Main article: Network hub

A hub contains multiple ports. When a packet arrives at one port, it is copied the packets to all the ports of the hub. When the packets are copied, the destination address in the frame does not change to a broadcast address. It does this in a rudimentary way, it simply copies the data to all of the Nodes connected to the hub. [2]

"It is copied the packets to all the ports"? Does that mean "All the packets are copied"? "It does this in a rudimentary way"? What does what in a rudimentary way? Thanks --Sukkoth 10:00, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

fundamentalt bajs(bias) problem

this article is completely oriented towards packet switched networks, making no mention of the concepts of circuit switched networks. it also does a lousy job of handling anything besides desktop PCs; to an ATM network admin, "switch" is hardly a marketing term. my digital cordless telephone with two or three handsets? it's a star-topology computer network. Most computer networks run on cat-5? I doubt it; my home has about twenty feet of cat 5, a wireless LAN, and several thousand feet of DSL line to the telco. Most of the content here should probably be shunted to an article with a more specific name. -- Akb4 20:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the library LAN will make you happier, since VoIP is virtual circuit switched, possibly connecting to a POTS circuit switch.
I do not agree "switch" is anything but a marketing term. The generic term for all layers is network interconnect device, L2 interconnects are bridges, and L3 interconnects are routers. If "switch" means anything in the real world, it is a device optimized for IEEE 802.3 connectivity, and usually does not have all the WAN-related features of something sold as a router. If you think "switch" is used other than in marketing, please find an RFC that defines it. You won't find such a definition in RFC 1812 or RFC 2544, which should be the authoritative documents.
I agree that in your network, not everything is Cat 5. Branching stars, incidentally, are a common way to scale all but the smallest networks; I tend to call them tree-structured rather than star. The DSL, however, is not part of your network, so yours is Cat 5 and IEEE 802.11 wireless. My home and office network happens to be all Cat 5, although we occasionally turn on wireless to test a customer's wireless network. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:16, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

By scale

Quote from the QoS link: "Quality of Service, abbreviated QoS, refers to resource reservation control mechanisms rather than the achieved service quality. Quality of Service is the ability to provide different priority to different applications, users, or data flows, or to guarantee a certain level of performance to a data flow." I think it is important to be careful with this term, since it is so easily misinterpreted. It is an activity, not a result, and while QoS can be implemented to provide a desired quality of service in regards to one or more particular parameters, the quality of the service is still just small q quality of small s service. I'd pick a different phrase to avoid the confusion that is inevitable with this term. Eleven even (talk) 10:53, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Storage Area Networks

I would suggest the author to include SAN (Storage Area Network) in the 'types of network' section. Otherwise this article remains to be incomplete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.64.9.154 (talk) 12:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)


Article quality

I stumbled across this article by chance and found the quality rather bad. The introduction made no sense. It mentioned OSI and TCP/IP models, apparently preferring TCP/IP model, but it spoke of classification by network layer operating. But TCP/IP only has one single way to operate a network, namely IP by definition, so how can one classify other networks this way? I rewrote the intro as a general statement as what to expect from the article. Kbrose (talk) 03:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)aver cyber cafe

I agree the article maybe not great but it is C class by the assessment scale. it does not meet b standards because of what oyu meantioned but is way above start class. The importance is a hard one to judge, because what do you define as more important ina computer and not.--Andy (talk - contrib) 16:19, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

it is updated to Gaurav —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.161.120 (talk) 14:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC) 

Information technology portal

v • d • eThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Computing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Computing on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. 

C  This article has been rated as C-Class on the project's quality scale. 
Mid  This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. 
This article is supported by WikiProject Computer networking (marked as Top-importance).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.236.230.247 (talk) 11:30, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I understand that Wikipedia isn't intended as a collection of links, but I think that the following page is quite suitable for further reading. It describes the multitude of components found on LANS. Thoughts?

It's pretty basic information. The same information is covered by this (Computer network) article and some of its subarticles, particularly local area network and router. It might useful as a reference for a sentence or two, but I don't see it as a standalone external link. —EncMstr 17:39, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I say it be better used as a ciation assume it pass a realible source rather thana external link but it could be used as one.--Andy (talk - contrib) 16:21, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Considering our manual of style

Wikipedia:Manual of style#Section headings: "Section names should not explicitly refer to the subject of the article." Should we ignore this rule? Go half way? What?

I seek to wonder, with you, if the new-to-this-subject and old alike could appreciate what Types of area meant, and what Local, Campus, Metropolitan, Wide, Global, and Private meant from the table of contents at the top of the article.

The main reason I ask is because I believe I understand section naming as a complex system, with explicit, naming guidelines, and that section naming has as a significant effect on an online encyclopedia as does the encyclopedia's WP:outline and its WP:category systems, because section names can be directly linked from other articles, and because changing the section name later then kills links. This makes section titles a more involved and deeper structure than changing an outline or category element of the overall structure.

We are equally future-blind to the way links will form the category and content links. Outlines, on the other hand, tell us what will be. I believe section names are a kind of wiki-wide outline that we make that should guide future editors as to how things should be. Section naming is outlining the article, and more: it has the same effect on the article as it will on future editors—the entire wiki—because of their freedom to interlink subsections. By following some carefully thought out guidelines we can effect a future structure that does not have to be continually reworked. The only other option that I can think of is to explain that editors should refrain from linking to sections that follow don't follow the naming guideline, because they might there link might die when the target is renamed later.

My vision of efficiency compels me to say all that. In the particular case of Computure networks and it's naming structure, I further ask that the following ideas be granted admission:

We don't have to use the field's terminology in our section names, but we are duty bound to report in our textual content precisely and strictly what the notable world says, and how they say it. We have an even more important duty though to carefully consider section names because they are future links for our organization. The way way Wikipedia is now, we're still setting up the basic outline. Ergo, I am here believing that the outline we choose today will influence the rate of the efficiency of content addition and content linking tomorrow.

Our current section-naming guideline would produce the following, stunning revelations that were, in section 3, at first impression, objectionable to me, but I quickly got used to them as a wiki thing: 

    * 1 Introduction
    * 2 Classification
          o 2.1 Connection method
          o 2.2 Scale
          o 2.3 Architecture
          o 2.4 Topology
    * 3 Types by area
          o 3.1 Personal
          o 3.2 Local
          o 3.3 Campus
          o 3.4 Metropolitan
          o 3.5 Wide area
          o 3.6 Global
          o 3.7 Private area
          o 3.8 Internetwork
          ... <snip>

Note: The term area at 3.5 and 3.7 suffixed the most general adjectives, but not those easily associated with some noun. "Wide what?" and "Private what?" are valid questions, but "Campus what?" is not, etc. It's computer networks!

May our opinions meet no urgency in the answering, but find the importance of consideration nevertheless. Thank you very much for your consideration of these matters, and I look forward to a leisurely discussion. — CpiralCpiral 23:51, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


Improving The Article

Friends i think this article requires lots of improvement and i am ready to be a helpful had for this article. But first we must have to decide that what we want this article to show.Regards to all --Sandeep (talk) 10:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you Sandeep, and I am going to start with a couple of changes:

  • Campus Area Network is not a usual term. We refer to Campus network for a network that spans across buildings and are interconnected privately (i.e. with the use of telecoms transmission network).
  • Internetnetwork is not a term that can be applied to Enterprise Private Network where a company set of remote sites (LAN's) are inter-connected via a WAN. An internetwork is an inter-connection of private networks that are not solely owned by corporation, univeristy or government etc.

Ludovic.ferre (talk) 20:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Another overlap

I also ran across data transmission which is a bit odd for a topic name, since normally one wants to receive data too, not just transmit it? It puts itself ino the Category:Local area networks which is also odd, because other kinds of networks also transmit their data. There is even a Category:Data transmission which has Category:Computer networking as a subcategory. There is also a Data transmission circuit which is just a cut-n-paste of a definition. Odd that Data communication redirect here, but data transfer and digital communication go there. Digital Communications System goes to GSM but never explained in that article why. Digital Communication Receiver goes to Demodulation, which might make sense, but the captial letters seem not to style. W Nowicki (talk) 21:16, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I was not aware of data transmission. I've watchlisted it. Not sure how best to improve things. I'd encourage making some changes and we can see how they look. --Kvng (talk) 15:39, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

/* Network security */ english edit, some probably extraneous text moved to discussion page

"Networks can be private, such as within a company, and others which might be open to public access. Network Security is involved in organization, enterprises, and all other type of institutions. It does as its titles explains, secures the network. Protects and oversees operations being done."


seems pretty vacuous. If we really need to explain this, requires rewording I am not up for just now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elinruby (talk • contribs) 22:56, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

C Class change

Teapeat - That was just a typo. I'm afraid I have no idea how that happened. Thanks for fixing!!! Maura Driscoll (talk) 01:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Merge from Computer Networks and Internet Technology

Computer Networks and Internet Technology is an outline covering topics in this article and possibly also Internet. I'm not sure what's salvageable but I don't see much reason to keep Computer Networks and Internet Technology separate. -—Kvng 21:11, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Do you know how to determine what else links to that separate topic? I don't know how to do that yet. I'd be curious. Maura Driscoll (talk) 21:40, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Virtually nothing links to it: [1]Teapeat (talk) 03:31, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
It also gets virtually no hits, probably for the same reason: [2]Teapeat (talk) 03:31, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
I would completely agree, it needs to be merged.Teapeat (talk) 03:31, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

 Done by Teapeat (talk · contribs) 2013-03-25. Thanks! -—Kvng 14:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Wish list for Computer networks

I would like to see this topic migrate into B-class article. However, I think the number of unreferenced statements in the piece, as is, make it very difficult for individual technical contributors to add updated information with references. I know referencing the statements would be a major undertaking, and more than one person can or should do. I wonder if there is a way to collaborate to have this done for this piece? I am new to Wikipedia, so comments welcome about that. Maura Driscoll (talk) 12:53, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Under History:

"Many of the social behaviors seen in today's Internet were demonstrably present in the 19th century and arguably in even earlier networks using visual signals.[further explanation needed]"

I would really like to delete this line.
(I finally did trip across a place where this idea was fleshed out at length, somewhere under telecommunications. But it might serve this particular topic better if it was deleted - at least until some of the other unreferenced statements in the article can be referenced? - unless someone wants to give a citation and explain the intended meaning of this statement for the reader?)
OK to delete it for now?
Maura Driscoll (talk) 17:00, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Finally deleted it. Did add a link to the telecommunications topic last month, also. Maura Driscoll (talk) 03:12, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


Backbone Network:

I would like to revise this section. But I have a question. I want to mention network servers. I was hoping to just link to the topic rather than explain, but the topic, network server, itself seems a bit out-of-date. I also noticed that servers are rarely mentioned in the Wikipedia articles related to networking. Any insights about that would be appreciated!
Also, would there be any objection if I renamed this to Network Backbone?
Thanks ... Maura Driscoll (talk) 04:03, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

History:

I created two separate bullet items for the two distinct pieces of network development covered in bullet 1.
- one dated in the 1940s involving teletypes
- one dated in 1962 involving the creation of TCP/IP and Arpanet
There was just too much going on in bullet 1, especially with the two different date contexts. The rest of the bulleted list seems pretty much sorted by date, so I hope this is more balanced. (BTW, I didn't really want to delete the phrase "the teletype was of interest", but couldn't find a good home for it once I separated the two bullets by date. I looked, but the Wikipedia topic, Arpanet, doesn't mention the tie-in to peripheral devices like teletypes.)
Maura Driscoll (talk) 03:58, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Done last month - no reverts. Maura Driscoll (talk) 03:12, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

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