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Network Hardware Guide For Beginners
Network hardware plays the crucial role to set up home network. These are used to decrease network traffic congestion. For data transmissions to the network, hubs, switches and routers are used. To protect the network from the intruders, a firewall is also used.
Lets start the discussion with Hubs. This piece of device is used to network a group of computers on a LAN. Typically, hubs are very much reasonably priced. The job of a hub is to pass a transmission on to all the other computers or devices that are on a network cluster. All the computers are connected to a hub via a network cable. By using a hub you can connect anywhere between 4 and 64 computers. It entirely depends on the quality of the hub.
Another technical lingo is switches. To expand the existing network or to connect more computers to the network, switches are used. Alike hubs, switches are also used for transmitting a signal from one computer or device to another. These intelligent piece of devices and are more expensive than hubs.
To manage network traffic, routers are very important. These devices could be compared to switches but these are more high-end. In fact, they are more powerful than switches. To supervise data transmissions over different LANs and WANS such as the Internet routers are used. Apart from this, maintaining databases of information about the networks and computers on the networks are also routers responsibility. They examine transmitted data packets and transmit the data to their appropriate computers. Routers are a must for receiving data packets transmitted from one network to another via the IP Protocol.
In earlier part of our discussion, the job of firewalls is mentioned. Simply speaking, this is a security tool. It might be a hardware device or software or might be the amalgamation of both. Being set between a private network and a public network firewalls do the job of filtering all incoming and outgoing transmissions passing through it. To protect the network, security criteria are set and it blocks those transmissions that do not match that criteria. It also blocks any unauthorized incoming transmissions from outside the network that might be harmful for the network.
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