Example of Terms

Below you will find a diagram of a simple home network. I am using this page and diagram to demonstrate the terms covered on page 1

In this example, you can see where the owner would save money not purchasing duplicate resources. The owner only needs one printer, one ZIP drive and one internet connection for both of his/her computer.

Overview

This network is made up of a router connecting two computers. Computer 1 has an external ZIP drive (a remove storage device, similar to a floppy disk, but larger), and Computer 2 has a printer. Between the router and the internet would be a DSL modem or a cable modem, depending on the homes internet provider.

The Router

The router acts like a router when ever computer 1 and/or computer 2 is accessing the internet, but is acting like a switch when ever computer 1 is communicating with computer 2 (or visa-versa). The router would also act as a DHCP server for the networking, give out the IP addresses to the various clients on the network. For example, maybe the router has been assigned the IP address of 192.168.0.100 and gives 192.168.0.101 to computer 1 and 192.168.0.102 to computer 2.

Computer 1

Computer 1 has the printer attached, so it could be called the networks print server. When it receives an IP address from the router it is called a client. It would also be called a client whenever it accesses Computer 2's ZIP drive.

Computer 2

Computer 2 has the ZIP drive attached, so it could be called a file server when ever another computer accesses file on that drive. It would be called a client when it recieves an IP address from the router. It is also called a client when ever it uses the printer on Computer 1.