Description

In this book, a significant effort has been made to find simple ways to develop theoretical aspects of Computer Network including data communication in Network. There are many interconnections in the field of networking, as in most technical fields, and it is difficult to find an order of presentation that does not involve endless “forward references” to future chapters; this is true even if – as is done here – a largely bottom-up ordering is followed. I have therefore taken here a different approach: this first chapter is a summary of the essentials – LANs, IP and TCP – across the board, and later chapters expand on the material here. Local Area Networks, or LANs, are the “physical” networks that provide the connection between machines within, say, a home, school or corporation. Finally, TCP deals with transport and connections and actually sending user data. One of the best ways to gain insight into why a certain design choice was made is to look at a few alternative implementations. To that end, this book includes coverage of some topics one may never encounter in practice, but which may be useful as points of comparison. Finally, I hope the book may also be useful as a reference work. To this end, I have attempted to ensure that the indexing and cross-referencing is sufficient to support the drop-in reader. Similarly, obscure or specialized notation is kept to a minimum.