Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
This filters traffic and stops traffic, not intended for the network, from clogging-up the back-
bone. Most modern bridges, gateways and routers are intelligent and can automatically de-
termine the topology of the network.
Spanning-tree bridges have built-in intelligence and can communicate with other bridges.
They can then build up a picture of the interconnected networks. So, if more than one path
exists between individual segments, the bridge automatically finds alternate routes. This is
useful when a fault develops on a route or a route becomes too heavily loaded. Conventional
bridges can cause frames to loop around forever.
25.1.1 Peer-to-peer and client/server
An important concept is the differentiation between a peer-to-peer connection and a cli-
ent/server connection. A peer-to-peer connection allows users on a local network access to a
local computer. Typically, this might be access to:
Local printers - Printers, local to a computer, can be accessed by other users
if the printer is shareable. This can be password protected, or not. Shareable
printers on a Microsoft network have a small hand under the icon.
Local disk drives and folders - The disk drives, such as the hard disk or CD-
ROM drives can be accessed if they are shareable. Normally the drives must
be shareable. On a Microsoft network a drive can be made shareable by select-
ing the drive and selecting the right-hand mouse button, then selecting the
Sharing option. User names and passwords can be set-up locally or can be
accessed from a network server. Typically, only the local computer grants
access to certain folders, whereas others are not shared.
These shared resources can also be mounted as disk drives to the remote computer. Thus, the
user of the remote computer can simply access resources on the other computers as if they
were mounted locally. This option is often the best when there is a small local network, as it
requires the minimum of set-up and does not need any complicated server set-ups.
A client/server network has a central server which is typically used to:
Store usernames, group names and passwords.
Run print queues for networked printers.
Allocate IP addresses for Internet accesses.
Provide centralised file services, such as hard disks or networked CD-ROM drives.
Provide system back-up facilities, such as CD-R disk drives and DAT tape drives.
Centralise computer settings.
Provide access to other centralised peripherals, such as networked faxes, dial-in network
connections, and so on.
Provide WWW and TCP/IP services, such as remote login and file transfer.
If in doubt, a peer-to-peer network is normally the best for a small office environment. Care
must be taken, though, when setting up the attributes of the shared resources. Figure 25.2
shows an example of the sharing setting for a disk drive. It can be seen that the main attrib-
utes are:
Search WWH ::




Custom Search