Novell Del Mar College
CIS 306 - Managing NOVELL® Networks
 Instructor: Michael P. Harris
Networking Primer

1. What Is a Computer Network?

On the most basic level, a computer network is a collection of devices that can store and manipulate electronic data, interconnected in such a way that network users can store, retrieve, and share information.

Commonly connected devices include microcomputers, minicomputers, mainframe computers, terminals, printers, fax machines, pagers, and various data storage devices. In the near future, numerous other types of devices will be network connectable, including interactive TVs, videophones, and navigational and environmental control systems. Eventually, devices everywhere will give you two-way access to a vast array of resources on a global computer network.

In today's business world, a computer network is much more than a collection of interconnected devices. For many businesses, the computer network is the resource that enables them to gather, analyze, organize, and disseminate the information that is essential to their profitability. The rise of intranets and extranets—a recent development in computer networking—is the latest indication of the crucial importance of computer networking to businesses. Intranets and extranets are private business networks that are based on Internet technology. Intranets, extranets, and the Internet will be treated in more detail in a later section. For now, it is enough to understand that businesses are currently implementing intranets at a breakneck pace and for one reason only—an intranet enables a business to collect, manage, and disseminate information more quickly and easily than ever before. Many businesses are implementing intranets simply to remain competitive; businesses that delay are likely to see their competition outdistance them.

1.1  What Are the Benefits of Computer Networking?

The most obvious benefit of computer networking is that you can store and retrieve virtually any kind of information on a computer network, including textual information such as letters and contracts, audio information such as voice messages, and visual images such as facsimiles, photographs, medical x-rays, and even video.

In addition to information storage and retrieval, there is a host of other important benefits of networking computers. Having a computer network enables you to combine the skills of different people and the power of different equipment, regardless of the physical locations of the people or the equipment. And computer networking enables people to easily share information, allowing them to work more securely, efficiently, and productively.

Powerful, Flexible Collaboration

A well-designed computer network enables users to collaborate effectively.

For example, a managing editor, associate editors, writers, and artists may need to work together on a publication. With a computer network, they can share the same electronic files, each from his or her own computer, without copying or transferring files. If the applications they are using feature even basic integration with the network operating system, they can perform such tasks as opening, viewing, and printing the same file simultaneously.

Using applications that are designed to take full advantage of network capabilities and services, network users can collaborate with ease and speed. For example, users can engage in real-time teleconferencing, talking face-to-face while simultaneously viewing and editing the same document, adding and deleting notes and comments, and instantaneously viewing each other's changes as they are made. And, they can do this without having to worry about accidentally changing or deleting the work of others.

To be able to collaborate electronically from widely separate physical locations has significant advantages. It enables people to avoid the considerable time investments and costs connected with traveling. It enables people to communicate instantaneously, regardless of the distance, and to act before their competitors do. It frees people from having to reconcile the differences in multiple information files. Electronic collaboration enables people to minimize the amount of work required to complete projects—it frees them from redoing work they would do correctly in the first place if they had instantaneous access to up-to-date information and instructions.

Freedom to Choose the Right Tool

If you choose an open networking environment, this adds another dimension to the information-sharing capabilities inherent in computer networking. Open networking products enable users to work on the type of computer best suited to the job they must do, without placing restrictions on their file-sharing capabilities.

The design of any particular computer can make it well suited for some tasks and not as well suited for others. In an open environment, you can combine many kinds of computers to take advantage of the special strengths of each type of machine. For example, Novell network users can use IBM PCs running any version of Windows or DOS, Macintosh computers running a version of the Macintosh operating system, Sun workstations running the UNIX operating system, and many other types of computers, all on the same network. Scientists, secretaries, doctors, lawyers, writers, editors, artists, engineers—everyone can use the type of computer equipment best suited to the type of work he or she does, yet each can still easily share information with everyone else.

Cost-Effective Resource Sharing

A very important reason for having a computer network is that it enables users to share expensive equipment.

Equipment sharing has significant benefits. It enables you to buy equipment with features that you wouldn't otherwise be able to afford and to ensure that the equipment is used to its full potential. A correctly implemented network can result in both increased productivity and lower equipment costs.

For example, suppose you had a number of unconnected computers. People using these computers would not be able to print unless you purchased a printer for each computer or unless users manually transferred files from computers without printers to those with printers. In choosing between these alternatives, you would be choosing between significant expenses for hardware or significant expenses for labor.

But networking the computers would give you other alternatives. Because all users could share any networked printer, you would not need to buy a printer for every computer. Therefore, rather than buying numerous inexpensive printers, none of which had top-end productivity features and all of which would sit idle most of the time, you could buy a few inexpensive printers and a few printers with top-end productivity features. The more powerful printers might be able to print 20 times more pages per minute than the inexpensive printers. And, the more powerful printers might also be able to print in color and to sort, staple, or bind any number of pages, and to produce large numbers of completed documents.

On a Novell network, all users could share the various printers, accessing whichever printer was most appropriate for the job they were doing. The network software would enable users to print whenever they wanted. The network would print documents in the order they were received, on the printer the user selected. Whenever necessary, users would be able to change the order in which documents were to be printed and where they were to be printed.

By selecting the right mix of printers and allowing each network user appropriate access to them, you could have enough printing power to take care of the needs of all users; you could ensure that expensive equipment was not standing idle; and you could provide users with the latest, most powerful productivity features, freeing them from many tasks they would otherwise have to do manually—all for a significantly lower cost than if you were to buy an inexpensive printer for each of the computers connected to your network.

A network enables you to share any networkable equipment or software and realize the same benefits that you would enjoy from sharing printers. On a network, users can share modems; data storage devices, such as hard disks and CD-ROM drives; data backup devices, such as tape drives; E-mail systems; facsimile machines; and all networkable software. When you compare sharing these resources to purchasing them for each computer, the cost savings can be enormous.

When you implement an intranet, you can share network resources with suppliers, consultants, and other outside partners. Soon, you will be able to allow your employees to rent applications over the Internet. Businesses have just begun to explore the possibilities of intranet resource sharing.

Secure Management of Sensitive Information

There is another advantage to computer networking that may be even more important than instantaneous, coordinated information and resource sharing. The best networks have extremely powerful security features that enable you to exercise flexible control of who will have access to sensitive data, equipment, and other resources.

Effective Worldwide Communications

If you choose a networking company that offers a full suite of products—including robust directory services—and that supports open standards, you will be able to connect heterogeneous computing equipment at distant geographic locations into one cohesive network. As a result, you will be able to disseminate critical information to multiple locations anywhere in the world, almost instantaneously.

Easy, Immediate Information Dissemination

When you implement a business intranet, you can create or update information and easily and immediately make it accessible to all company employees. With a World Wide Web server running on your intranet and with today's powerful Web publishing tools, you can create or change any information using a favorite, familiar application, and you can have that information automatically and instantaneously published on your Web server. This information will then be available to anyone who has rights to access it, anywhere in the world.

Worldwide, Instantaneous Access to Information

With access to your business's intranet and Web server, your employees will be able to easily and inexpensively access any new or updated information, from anywhere in the world, within a few seconds after it is published. The Internet provides the low-cost backbone for global access to your intranet, and existing Web browsers and other intranet tools make it easy for even the most novice computer user to access the information and intranet resources they need.

Integrated, flexible information sharing; instantaneous information updating and access; lower equipment costs; flexible use of computing power; secure management of sensitive information—these are the benefits of computer networking. And these benefits help us produce the results we are all looking for: increased efficiency, productivity, and profitability.

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