Types of Networks

Types of Networks:
LANs (Local Area Networks)
A network is any group of independent computers that transfer with one another over a shared network medium. LANs are networks usually limited to a geographic area, such as a single building or a college campus. A Local Area Network (LAN) is basically a smaller network that does connect to a small area.

Metropolitan Area Networks
A Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) connects two or more computers (LANs) together but not the limits of a city, town, or metropolitan area. Within this type of network is also the Campus Area Network, which is generally smaller than a MAN, connecting LANs within a limited specific area, like a university campus, military base, or industrial complex.
WANs (Wide Area Networks)
Wide area networking chains multiple LANs that are geographically distinct. This is able by connecting the different LANs using services such as dedicated leased phone lines, fiber links, and satellite links. Wide Area Networks (WAN) connect larger areas. Often, smaller LANs are interconnected to large WAN. For instance, an office LAN in India may be connected to office LANs for the same company in US to form a WAN spanning the whole company. The individual offices are no longer part of individual LANs, they are instead part of a worldwide WAN. The connection of this type of network is complex. WANs are normally connected using multiplexers connect local and metropolitan networks to global communications networks like the Internet.

Internet
The Internet is a system of joined networks that are worldwide in scope and enable data communication services such as remote login, file transfer, electronic mail, the World Wide Web and newsgroups. Now a day the Internet has become a communications highway for millions of users. The Internet was initially restricted to military and academic institutions, but now it is a complete conduit for any and all forms. Internet websites now provide personal, educational, political and economic resources to every corner of the globe.

Intranet
With the developments made in browser-based software for the Internet, many private organizations are implementing intranets. An intranet is a private network utilizing Internet-type tools, but accessible only within that organization. For large organizations, an intranet provides an easy access mode to business information for employees.

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What is a Computer Network? Understanding Networking

What is a Network?

A network consists of two or more units or items sharing resources and information.

What is a Computer Network?

A computer network consists of two or more computing devices connected to each other to share resources and information. 
The network becomes a powerful tool when computers communicate and share resources (files, Peripherals such as printers, CD ROMS, Modems, Tape Backup drivers) with other computers on the same network or entirely distinct networks. At multiple places are connected with network people can send e-mail, share links to the global Internet, or video conferences to remote users.

Understanding Networking

Network - A set of computers connected together in a way that allows information to be exchanged between the computers.

Node – Any devices that is connected to the network. While a node is typically a computer, it can also be something like a printer…

Segment - Any section of a network that is divided, by a switch, bridge or router, from other section of the network.

Backbone - The major cabling of a network that all of the segments connect to. Typically, the backbone is capable of carrying more information than the individual segments. For example, each segment may have a transfer rate of 100 Mbps (megabits per second: 1 million bits a second), while the backbone may operate at 1 Gbps.

Topology - The way that each node is physically connected to the network.

Basic Networking Components

Most networks consist of at least two computers, network interface cards,Cabling, network operating system software, and a hub or switch.

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Basic Concept in Communication

Basic Concept in Communication  

Communications – activity related with distributing or exchanging information between source and destination.

Telecommunications– Technology of communications at a distance that allows information to be produced anywhere and used everywhere with slight delay.

Today it, engages 

• Data: digital and analog
• Voice: spoken word
• Video: telecommunication imaging

Essentials for Communications

• Message or resources to be share
• Source or Transmitter 
• Destination or Receiver
• Communication medium (Transmission system)

1. Input Message
2. Input data digital bit stream
3. Transmitted analog signal
4. Received analog signal
5. Output data digital bit stream 
6. Output Message

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IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) - Segments or Sections of Cloud Computing

Segments or Sections of Cloud Computing

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

Brings utility computing capability, typically as raw virtual servers, on demand that customers configure and manage.  Here Cloud Computing delivers grids or clusters or virtualized servers, networks, storage and systems software, usually (but not always) in a multi-tenant architecture.

• IaaS is planned to enlarge or replace the purposes of an entire data center. This saves cost (time and expense) of capital equipment deployment but does not reduce cost of configuration, integration or management and these tasks must be executed remotely.
• IT infrastructure through virtualization. Virtualisation allows the splitting of a single physical portion of hardware into independent, self-governed environments, which can be scaled in terms of CPU, RAM, Disk and other elements.
• The infrastructure includes servers, networks and other hardware appliances delivered as either Infrastructure “Web Services”, “farms” or "cloud centers". These are then interlinked with others for resilience and additional capacity. 

Examples are Amazon.com (Elastic Compute Cloud [EC2] and Simple Storage), IBM and other traditional IT vendors.

    Amazon EC2

• Amazon EC2 is one large complex web service.
• EC2 provided an API for instantiating computing instances with any of the operating systems supported.
• It can facilitate computations through Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for various other models.
• Signature features: S3, Cloud Management Console, MapReduce Cloud, Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
• Excellent distribution, load balancing, cloud monitoring tools

Advantages

•     Pay per use
•     Instant Scalability
•     Security
•     Reliability
•     APIs

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PaaS (Platform as a Service) - Segments or Sections of Cloud Computing

Segments or Sections of Cloud Computing

PaaS (Platform as a Service)

Brings virtualized servers on which customers can run present applications or develop new ones without having to burden about keeping the operating systems, server hardware, load balancing or computing capacity.

•   A cloud computing platform dynamically supplies, configures, re-configures and de-provisions servers as needed to manage with increases or decreases in demand. This in certainty is a distributed computing model, where many services collected to deliver an application or infrastructure demand.
• These vendors deliver APIs or development platforms to create and run applications in the cloud – e.g. using the Internet.
•   Managed Service providers with application services delivered to IT departments to monitor systems and downstream applications such as virus scanning for e-mail are frequently included in this kind.

Examples are Microsoft's Azure, SalesForce.com, Google Maps, ADP Payroll processing, and US Postal Service offerings.

  Microsoft's Azure

•       Enterprise-level on-demand capacity builder

•       Fabric of cycles and storage available on-request for a cost

•       You have to use Azure API to work with the infrastructure offered by Microsoft

•       Significant features: web role, worker role , blob storage, table and drive-storage

 Advantages

•          Pay per use

•          Instant Scalability

•          Security

•          Reliability

•          APIs

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SaaS (Software As A Service) - Segments or Sections of Cloud Computing

Segments or Sections of Cloud Computing 

SaaS (Software As A Service)

The most broadly known and extensively used form of cloud computing.  It provides all the purposes of a classy traditional application to many customers and often thousands of users, but through a Web browser, not a “locally-installed” application.

• SaaS removes customer concerns about application servers, storage, application development and related, common concerns of IT.
• SaaS is a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service delivered to customers across the Internet.
• SaaS is usually used to refer to business software rather than consumer software, falls under Web 2.0!
• By eliminating the need to install and run an application on a user’s own computer it is seen as a way for businesses to get the same proceeds as commercial software with smaller cost expenditure.
• Saas lessens the problem of software maintenance, support, but users surrender control over software versions and requirements.

Examples are Salesforce.com, Google's Gmail and Apps, instant messaging from AOL, Yahoo and Google, and VoIP from Vonage, MS Live/Exchange Labs, IBM, Quicken Online, Zoho, Cisco  and Skype. 

Advantages

• Pay per use 
• Instant Scalability
• Security
• Reliability
• APIs

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Basics of Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like the electricity grid.

In other words, this is a collection/group of integrated and networked hardware, software and Internet infrastructure (called a platform).

(Move towards delivering “computing” to masses similar to other utilities (electricity and voice communication).

The cloud computing is a conclusion of many attempts at large scale computing with seamless access to virtually unlimited resources.

  * Using the Internet for communication and transport provides hardware, software and networking services to clients.

  * on-demand computing, utility computing, ubiquitous computing, autonomic computing, platform computing, edge computing, elastic computing, grid computing, …

The on-demand, self-service, pay-by-use model

The on-demand, self-service, pay-by-use nature of cloud computing is also an addition of established trends. From an enterprise viewpoint, the on-demand nature of cloud computing helps to support the performance and capacity features of service-level objectives. The self-service nature of cloud computing allows organizations to create elastic environs that expand and contract based on the workload and target performance limits. And the pay-by-use nature of cloud computing may take the form of equipment lease that assurance a minimum level of service from a cloud provider.

Virtualization is a key feature of this model. IT organizations have agreed for years that virtualization permits them to quickly and easily create copies of present locations —sometimes involving multiple virtual machines — to support test, development, and staging activities. The cost of these environments is minimal because they can coexist on the same servers as production environments because they use little resources.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

~ The platform provides on demand services that are always on anywhere, anytime and anyplace.

~  Pay for use and as needed, elastic (scale up and down in capacity and functionality).

~  The hardware and software services are available to the general public, enterprises, corporations and businesses markets.

 ~ It hides the complexity and details of the original infrastructure from users and applications by providing very simple graphical interface.

Segments or types of Cloud Computing

         Cloud computing has three main segments which are as follows:

o   Applications  or software (SaaS)

o   Platform (PaaS)

o   Infrastructure  (IaaS)

•       A cloud computing environment can provide one or more of these requirements for a cost

•       Pay as you go model of business, when using a public cloud the model is similar to renting a property than owning one.

•       An organization could also maintain a private cloud and/or use both.

Cloud Computing Architecture

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Tips & Tricks For Windows 7

Put a “Pin Up” of the Folders You Use Most.
Windows® 7 allows you to “pinUp” the folders you use most on your taskbar. Simply hold your mouse over theFavourite folder, right click, and drag it onto the taskbar. Windows 7 automaticallyPins itself to the Explorer Jump List. To open the folder, right click on the ExplorerIcon and select the folder you want.

Double-Up Your Windows. 
When working within an application, sometimesYou just want more of a good thing. To open another window of the sameApplication (assuming the app can run more than one instance), simply hold Shift and click the taskbar icon. You can also middle-click your third mousebutton for the same result.

Clear, Crisp Display—It’s In Your Control. 
Windows 7 makes it easy for you toadjust your display settings, making text and images easier to view in all the various locations where you work on your computer. Your laptop display may look fine at work but a little dark at home. Adjust the text and image settings easily with two snappy applets: Clear Type Text Tuning and Display Colour Calibration. Run cttune.exe and dccw.exe, or look them up in the Control Panel.

Order and Reason for Your Taskbar.
You can decide the order that your icons show up in your taskbar by simply dragging them to the

order you desire. And for the first five icons, you can launch them with a simple keystroke: Any of the first five icons can be opened by pressing +1, +2, etc.

Taskbar Traversing.
While we’re on the subject of taskbar shortcuts, use +T to shift your attention to the taskbar. Your machine will make its active screen your taskbar menu, and you can use the arrow keys to select the application you’re

interested in. Just hit Enter to launch it. Naturally, to exit this trick, press Esc.

Your Own Personal Help Desk: Windows Troubleshooting Platform.

We’ve all experienced minor issues like Windows Aero not displaying or sound controls not functioning. Don’t get stuck in the mud just because your computer seems to be. Windows 7 can save you from having to bite the bullet and call the help desk for every problem that comes up, thanks to the new Windows Troubleshooting Platform. It’s easily accessed by typing “fix” or “Troubleshoot” in the Start Menu. A list of Windows Troubleshooting Packs allows you to choose from  what might be giving you trouble, and the trouble-shooter will faithfully attempt to clear up the problem.

 Bit Locker To Go Protection.
Bit Locker has become a saving grace when it Comes to increased laptop security. Windows 7 has taken security even farther with its BitLocker To GoTM feature, which allows you to encrypt removable USB

devices and external disks. To enable BitLocker or BitLocker To Go, right click the drive in Windows Explorer and select “Turn on BitLocker…” This can also be managed centrally via Group Policy, so IT administrators can require the USB drive be encrypted before files can be written to it.

Your Own Personal Help Desk: Windows Troubleshooting Platform.

We've all experienced minor issues like Windows Aero not displaying or sound controls not functioning. Don’t get stuck in the mud just because your computer seems to be. Windows 7 can save you from having to bite the bullet and call the help desk for every problem that comes up, thanks to the new Windows Troubleshooting Platform. It’s easily accessed by typing “fix” or “Troubleshoot” in the Start Menu. A list of Windows Troubleshooting Packs allows you to choose from what might be giving you trouble, and the troubleshooter will faithfully attempt to clear up the problem.

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Tips for good IT Manager

Listen to your staff

By far the best advice I can possibly give you is to listen to your staff and to take their recommendations seriously. You don’t necessarily have to follow every recommendation, but at least hear your employees out. They are the ones who do most of the day-to-day work, so they may have insight into aspects of the organization’s operations that you might not pick up on yourself. Not only can your staff give you valuable guidance, but taking the time to listen to them helps build morale. Listening to your employees shows that you respect them and that you value their input.

Be accommodating

Another thing I realized during my tenure as an IT manager is that it’s important to be accommodating to your staff whenever possible. In every organization I have ever worked for, IT jobs have involved a lot of stress and some really long hours. Because everyone worked such long hours, I had to accept the fact that sometimes my employees would need to leave for a little while during the workday. For example, someone might need to go to the bank before it closed or pick up their kids. As an IT manager, I always tried to accommodate these types of requests so long as they didn’t interfere with IT operations.

Maintain your technical knowledge

Often, IT managers (and especially CIOs) spend more time in meetings than they do configuring servers or troubleshooting problems. As a result, it’s easy to let your technical skills become outdated. But there are at least three good reasons why you should maintain your technical skills, even if you don’t use them on a regular basis. First, you don’t want your staff to think of you as an idiot manager who knows nothing. If you don’t have a minimal level of IT knowledge, your staff may not respect you. Second, you never know when you may have to fire an employee or when someone will quit or end up in the hospital or something like that. You need to have enough knowledge to pitch in and help complete whatever projects the employee was working on. Even if you don’t have sufficient time or technical knowledge to complete the project yourself, you should know enough about it to help those who are going to be working on it, if necessary. Third, vendors will constantly try to sell you things. Unless you have a good bit of technical knowledge, you could easily get taken for a ride by a fast-talking vendor who is pitching an inferior product.

Know when to get outside help

No IT employee knows everything. Everyone has his or her strengths and weakness. Sometimes, a project may come along that falls outside of your employees’ skill sets. As an IT manager, you must not be afraid to acknowledge that some projects simply can’t be handled in house and to outsource such projects when appropriate.

 Take measures to relax and avoid burn out

IT can be stressful. Being a manager can be stressful. So it’s critical for IT managers to regularly take time to do something to relax and de-stress. Otherwise, you will become apathetic toward your job as you get burned out, and you will become irritable toward your staff.

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Desktop wallpaper Slideshow: Shuffle Desktop background

Windows 7 has a new feature which can display all wallpapers in a desktop Slideshow. Earlier there was few software that can display a slideshow of all your Wallpapers (Webshots being one of the most popular). To setup a desktop slideshow:


• Right-click at the desktop
• Select Personalize > Desktop Background


Here you can browse the Picture location to select a folder to choose images for desktop slideshow.
• Select and click as many images from the folder you want for desktop slideshow.
• Duration of slideshow can be chosen (anything from daily to once every 10 seconds), also order of appearance can be selected as sequential or shuffle.
Click Save Changes and enjoy the Slideshow.

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Copy Command Prompt Output

Windows 7 command prompt can be used with a clip utility that can used to copy the contents of the command prompt output into clipboard. It is very much similar like the way tee command works in UNIX. Tee command pipelines the output of a command in UNIX to another file. In Windows 7 we can use the „Clip‟ utility to copy the text of command prompt. Adding clip next to any command copy the output.

Syntax for Clipping the Command prompt output: “Command | clip” .You need to type the command followed by Clip in the Command prompt. e.g. > f:\dir | clip will copy the output of the command in clipboard; though it won‟t be displayed .You can further paste the “clapboarded text” to notepad or WordPad.

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Check Windows Version

Windows Version tells the exact Build of OS and service Pack you are using. You can simply check it by using Winver Command. Open Run Dialog box by using Win+R and type “Winver” there without quotes. This will bring a Windows which has OS details such as Windows details.

Alternatively you can also use the Command prompt to find the information. Type “Winver” in command prompt. It would display all details in command prompt.

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Assign Keyboard Shortcuts for Programs

Application can be assigned a shortcut key in Windows 7. The application would launch when the combo of keys is pressed which you entered as the Shortcut Key for that application.

To create Shortcut key for any application in Windows 7:

1. Right-click the program icon and select Properties.

2. Select the Shortcut tab

3. Click in Shortcut key textbox

4. Enter the keyboard shortcut for that program.

5. Press OK to exit.

6. Use the Keyboard shortcut combo to launch the application.

Like Like the way i have used a combo of keys Ctrl+Alt+C to launch calculator application other applications can also be launched using Shortcut keys.

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Create new instance of an Application in Windows 7 Super Taskbar

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Using the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility

Not able to remove or uninstall an application in Windows XP using either the Uninstall option or the Add/Remove Programs tool? Try using the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility. As long as you installed the application using the Windows Installer, this utility will remove all the folders, files, registry keys, and entries from your system and allow you to start over with a clean slate.

Here's how:

1. Download the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility from the Microsoft download center.

2. Locate and run msicuu2.exe to install the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility.

3. Locate and launch the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility on the Start menu.

4. From the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility window, locate the application in the list and click the Remove button.

5. Once the application has been removed, click the Exit button to close the utility.

You can now reinstall the application.

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