The Computer Network is the Backbone of Business
Sometimes people don’t understand what a computer network is and what it does. Everyone these days knows what computers are. Today most people have a computer or even more than one in their homes. But what is a computer network? Computer networks are the backbone of businesses, as we know them today.
A computer network only has to contain more than one computer. Two or more makes a network. Since computers began, the idea of hooking them together to share information with each other has been around. Sharing of equipment, like expensive printers, was always an appealing notion too.
How it All Started
Data is what computers make and keep and sharing data between computers is not the same as talking on the telephone and hearing each other’s voice. In the beginning computers were hooked together to share data by cables. Many still are today. These are special data transmission cables and the data is sent through the cables in chunks called packets. The computer sending the data is equipped with special instructions to break up the data being sent into these chunks. It is then transmitted through the cables and then the data packets are reassembled for use on the receiving computer. These instructions are called the protocol and the main one used since the beginning is called TCPIP. It is sort of the rules of etiquette that are followed by computers that interact with each other.
Computer networks now though contain hundreds or even thousands of computers hooked together. These can be located all over the world and not just in the next-door office anymore. Since it isn’t possible to run cables everywhere like that various other transmission arrangements are made through special data transmission telephone lines and now over wireless air waves and even bouncing off of satellites in space.
The possibilities are endless!
All kinds of possibilities are realized over computer networks. Part of the beauty of it all is that it can all happen instantaneously at the speed of well computers. If you don’t see your email come through, or your bank deposit shows up online for a while, it is not that it isn’t possible to do. The delay is deliberate. In the case of email the email server computer may collect emails to be sent for a period and then be scheduled to send them all out at once. It could though send them through each one as they are received immediately. In the case of the bank a similar scenario of only posting deposits at scheduled times may be true.
While business and commerce is conducted through computer networks these days, don’t feel left out. Anyone can have a computer network at home too. Remember all it takes is more than one computer. Older homes of course are not equipped with cables in the walls and the cables must be strung between computers however it is convenient. Some newer homes made provisions for network cables, but that has quickly become obsolete. Nowadays, small inexpensive home-style wireless routers are available to transmit a short-range signal through the house in order to transmit data between home computers.
They are all around us!
Computer networks are a part of everyday life and exist all around us. Is all this data flying around safe and confidential when it needs to be though? It is as much as it can be anyway. Networks do not simply exist without human supervision. There is always a tech guy somewhere watching out over his company’s network. Assisted with network security software, privacy policies, permissions for some people to look at some things while blocking others and encryption measures the keepers of the networks make it their priority #1 job to keep the data safe.
So what’s the record for the largest computer network that ever existed? It’s the Internet and nobody is going to be topping that record anytime soon!