In This Post, We will learn the basics of what, when, where, and how of Networking today.
What is Networking all about?
Networking is all about making communication happen.
Networking is about making digital communication happen by connecting to a network.
What is a network?
A network consists of devices, the links or connections between them, and the language they speak to share data.
Hardware components.
The devices present in the network are called the physical components or hardware.
These(Blue & Red) are the nodes of the network in the image.
The connections between them are known as channels or medium
Software Components
When does Networking happen?
Every call, message, e-mail you send is passed through a computer network.
But Networking doesn’t happen only when humans are on both ends of the dialogue.
Networking happens when computers talk to each other as well.
The computer that asks for information is called the client.
The computer that responds is called the server.
Networking in your Daily Life
♦ When you’re on vacation and mom texts, calls, and video calls every half an hour to make sure a polar bear didn’t eat you up.
♦ When you need to search the Internet for ‘Homework Solutions for Differential Calculus’.
♦ When you need a new phone delivered at your doorstep and you’re performing a scientific price comparison between Amazon and EBay.
How does Networking happen?
As we have already seen, the client requests for information and the server serves it to them. Exactly like in a restaurant, where the waiter serves the customer the food they had requested for.
The client and server are basically following a process by which they communicate a message to each other.
How do we communicate?
Let’s look at what actually happens during the transfer of a message by taking the example of buying a chocolate cake from a nearby bakery.
This is a generic flowchart.
The SENDER and the MESSAGE.
Every time we communicate, there must be a sender who wants to convey a specific message.
In this case, the sender is the boy, and the message is the desire for chocolate cake!
ENCODING the Message.
Unfortunately for our young hero, thought bubbles cannot be passed on to other people.
Every thought has to be put into some physical form.
This process is called encoding.
SENDING the Message
Now that we’ve encoded our message into a communicable form, we have to send the message.
How does that happen? Well, the boy has to speak out the words, and the sound waves will be carried through the air to the shopkeeper’s ears.
The air in this case is acting as the channel, or medium, by allowing a message to pass through it.
DECODING and RECEIVING the Message
Once the message has been sent into the channel, the receiver has to capture it, and decode it into an understandable form.
FEEDBACK
In order to let the boy know that the communication has been successful, the shopkeeper must send some feedback to acknowledge the communication.
