Stuff You ll Find in This Book

Stuff You'll Find in This Book

This book includes several features to help you digest the materials with minimal heartburn. With the solid foundation gained through this book, you can learn things about new technology more easily, talk networking with others, or be better prepared to begin a career in networking:

Chapter objectives Every chapter begins with a list of objectives that are addressed in the chapter. The objectives are revisited in the chapter summary.
Highlighted keywords and Glossary Throughout this book, you will see terms formatted with bold and italics. These terms are particularly significant in networking. So, if you find you aren't familiar with the term or at any point need a refresher, simply look up the term in the Glossary toward the end of the book to find a full definition.
Chapter summaries Every chapter concludes with a comprehensive chapter summary that reviews chapter objectives, ensuring complete coverage and discussing the chapter's relationship to future content.
Chapter review questions Every chapter concludes with review questions. These questions test the basic ideas and concepts covered in each chapter. You can find the answers to the questions in Appendix A.
Nontechie headings and titles The titles and headings used throughout this book avoid the use of technical terms when possible, focusing instead on words that connote something about the underlying concepts.

The illustrations in this book use the following icons for networking devices and connections:

For More Information…

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I hope you enjoy your first step into a deeper knowledge of networking, and I trust that these first steps will be a doozy of a good learning experience!

Part I: Networking Basics

Part I provides an introduction to fundamental networking concepts. Chapter 1 introduces you to basic networking terms, Chapter 2 describes the typical activities of network users, and Chapter 3 discusses the building blocks of a network as defined by networking architectural models.

Chapter 1: What Is a Network?

Chapter 2: A Network's Reason for Existence

Chapter 3: Building a Network: It All Starts with a Plan

Chapter 1. What Is a Network?

What You Will Learn

After reading this chapter, you should be able to

Provide a general definition for a network
Explain the differences in perceptions about networks based on whether one works on servers, cabling, or networking devices
Generally explain the concept of an enterprise network
Generally explain the concept of the Internet

There's an old story about how three blind men all go to the zoo to learn about elephants. They each walk up and touch a different part of the elephant. One touches the trunk and thinks that the elephant is like a snake. Another feels a leg and thinks an elephant is like a tree. Another grabs his tail and thinks an elephant is like a rope. (There are many variations on this story, which you can find by searching the Internet.)

Just like with the elephant and the blind men, many people have their own slanted views of just what a network really is. You and all the other people reading this book come with your own preconceptions about networking. So, depending on your own experiences, you might think of a network in one way, whereas another might think of a network in a different way. This chapter helps you begin to build a more consistent and more complete view of computer networking by explaining a few different views of what a network is and is not.