Computer Networking Explained | Cisco CCNA 200-301 - YouTube

Hey what's up guys welcome to CertBros

In this video we're going to be talking about computer networks

OK, so what is a computer network?

Well first let's break it down. What is a network?

The definition of a network is a group or system of interconnected people or things

So it would be fair to say, a computer network would be a group or system of interconnected computers. Right?

and that's exactly what it is. A computer network is anything where more than one computer is connected to each other

Traditionally a computer network would consist of desktop computers servers printers etc

But these days we live in a connected world

We still have desktops, servers, printers, but we now have a vast number of smart devices connected to our networks as well

Most of you will have a mobile phone, maybe a tablet. Security cameras. Even smart lights are found on networks these days.

And the list really does go on and on

So let's take a look at some basic networks and we can see what they look like

First, one that should be familiar to most of you

Here we have a switch, a router, a wireless access point, a desktop and a phone, all connected to the same network

This is a pretty common home setup.

It's worth noting that in most home networks, the switch and wireless access point will be built into the Rooter

Generally speaking any network in a single area is called a local area network or LAN

The LAN is usually connected to the outside world using a socket in the wall that your internet service provider has installed

This socket connects you to something called the wide area network or WAN

the purpose of a WAN is to connect separate local area networks together

The most obvious example of a one would be the internet however businesses might have

private WANs to connect multiple sites together

So now let's look at a more business type network

So we have all of our office computers and these would usually plug into a wall or floor socket

And these sockets will have cables either running through the floor or the ceiling back to a special room called a wiring closet

This room might also be called a patch room or a server room

In the wiring closet all of these devices will connect to a stack of switches

which are mounted onto racks depending on the size of the network

there may be multiple wiring closets which all connect to each other. Say for example on different floors

Keep in mind though this has been simplified to give you a general idea

lastly, we'll look at another type of network that might not be so obvious

Now, I said before I'm sure you all have smartphones of some sort

Now, these phones generally have internet

access via 3G, 4G and even 5g

Well you can think of these as basically a giant wireless network for your phones

Somewhere close to you there will be a

giant tower that allows you to connect and get internet access

The closer you are to these towers the better the connection is likely to be

So these are just some common network types and really just an introduction to some

basic networking devices.

So the next logical question is why. Why do we need networks?

well let's imagine life without networks for a second

If we want to print a document we would need to directly connect a printer

which is fine

but what if we have multiple computers?

we would need multiple directly connected printers, right?

Which isn't so fine

The beauty of a network is we can share resources.

if I have a file and I want to send it to someone I can.

They can also share the file with everyone else

we can have shared printers that everyone can use. We can even have servers that could store these files for us

Of course, file sharing and printing is just one example

but this could be pretty much anything. And all of this even before we

start talking about the internet, which by the way, is just a giant network

with the internet, we can search for anything we want

we literally have the world's knowledge at our fingertips

We have Email

We can message our friends telephone calls over the

We can use hosted computing

Telephone calls over the internet

and of course, awesome YouTube content

So networking has changed the world and how we live in it

It's a topic I still get excited about and there's no

shortage of new things to learn. We'll go over a lot of this in more detail as we go

This video is part of our full CCNA course which can be found in the description

So please feel free to go and check that out

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other than that, thank you for watching