Question

Ava’s company is in the process of designing and building a new local area network to support the newly expanded branch which is dedicated to handle the stock market related business transactions. A list of networking devices has been sent to you for your approval. This list includes hubs, switches, and routers. Would you approve these network devices to be used to build this new local area network? Please provide reasons to support your decision.

Answer 1

LAN stands for Local Area Network.

It is used to connect or built a network between different computers and thus turns individual computers into a shared working environment.

This working environment is the need of the hour of many business types ranging from small to large companies having a number of computers. Through this, sharing of data and other peripheral devices of the computer will be easier.

Different Components of a LAN - A LAN requires two types of components which are as forllows:

• Software Components
• Hardware components

The hardware components of a LAN consist of:

• PCs/workstations and servers.
• Network Interface Card (NIC).
• Cabling and connectors, for example, coaxial cable and BNC connector, Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) and RJ-45 connector
• Hub, concentrator, and more complicated network devices such as Bridge, LAN Switch and Router.

The software components of a LAN can be grouped into two categories:

1. Inside PCs/workstations and servers

2. Inside network devices (Hub/Bridge/LAN Switch/Router)

Below mentioned are the functions/role of the different components.

1. A Network Interface Card, or NIC, is a circuit board inserted into each network station (PC/workstation or server) to allow communication with other stations.

2. A Hub is a central device used on star network topology that repeats or amplifies signals, allowing the network to be lengthened or expanded with additional stations.

3. A Bridge is a device used to connect two or more LANs. It operates at the Media Access Control Layer (layer 2), checking and forwarding data packets between different LANs.

4. A LAN Switch is a device using switching hardware to speed-up the checking and forwarding of data packets between LANs. LAN Switch is functionally like a bridge, but its speed and performance is faster and better than a bridge.

5. A Router is a device that operates at the network layer (layer 3), routing data between similar or dissimilar networks.  A router is more powerful than a bridge or LAN Switch because the router checks the network protocols and addresses.

On the basis of the different important functions of the components in the LAN, i would approve hub and router as the networking devices.