Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
print jobs to a printer attached to someone else's PC or attached directly to the network itself.
A network can also serve as a conduit to other resources, such as Internet access.
In the following sections, you'll learn some basic terms and concepts related to home,
business, and Internet networking.
Network throughput is measured in
bits per second (bps)
, using the same
multiplier words as with bytes (as in Chapter 2): 1,000 bits is a
kilobit (Kbps)
,
1,000 kilobits is a
megabit (Mbps),
and 1,000 megabits is a
gigabit (Gbps)
.
Note that, when measuring bits per second, the multiplier is an even thousand,
not 1,024 as it is with memory. When the
b
is lowercase, as in gigabits (Gb), it
means
bits
; when it's uppercase, it means
bytes
, as in gigabytes (GB).
Clients and Servers
There are two basic models for network operation: client/server and peer-to-peer.
A
server
is a PC that exists only to route network traffi c and provides access to shared
fi les and printers. It manages the connections between the client PCs and serves as a storage
repository for fi les that users want to make available to others. A
client
is an ordinary
PC that an end-user employs. A server can be physically just an ordinary PC, but it has a
special server operating system installed (such as Windows Server) that enables it to provide
network services. Client/server (see Figure 3.9) is the network model used for almost all
business networks because the presence of the server takes the networking burden off the
clients. The main drawback to a client/server network is that there must be a PC dedicated
to functioning as a server, and not every company or home can spare the extra PC.
FIGURE 3.9
A client/server network contains one or more servers that manage the network.
