tailieunhanh - Networking: A Beginner’s Guide Fifth Edition- P12

Networking: A Beginner’s Guide Fifth Edition- P12:I have run into many people over the years who have gained good even impressive working knowledge of PCs, operating systems, applications, and common problems and solutions. Many of these people are wizards with desktop computers. | Chapter 4 Understanding Network Cabling 37 38 Networking A Beginner s Guide If you were to compare a computer network to the human body the network cabling system would be the nerves that make up the physical manifestation of the nervous system. The network cabling system is what actually carries all the data from one point to another and determines how the network works. How a network is cabled is of supreme importance to how the network functions how fast it functions how reliable the network will be as a whole and how easy it will be to expand and change the network. With any new network your first task after assessing the needs for the network is to determine how the network should be wired all the other components of the network are then built on that foundation. This is much like the OSI seven-layer model you learned about in Chapter 3 in that the network cabling makes up layer 1 the physical layer and all the upper networking layers rely on it. Many people think that network cabling is relatively simple. After all what could be simpler than running a wire between two points However as you will see the topic of network cabling encompasses more than meets the eye and it s an extremely important area to get right. If you make mistakes selecting or installing network cable your network will likely be unreliable and may perform poorly. Because of the labor costs involved in wiring a network the best time to address any potential problems in this area is well before they occur. Understanding Cable Topologies The word topology basically means shape and the term network topology refers to the shape of a network how all of the nodes points of a network are wired together. Networks may be wired in several different topologies and the choice of a topology is often your most important decision when you plan a network. The topologies have different costs both to install and maintain levels of performance and levels of reliability. DEFINE-IT Network Segment The term .