COPUTER NETWORKS AND SECURITY UNIT-1

What is Communication? Communication is the process whereby information is imparted by a sender to a receiver via a medium. Communication requires that all parties have an area of communicative commonality. There are auditory means, such as speaking, singing and sometimes tone of voice, and nonverbal, physical means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch, eye contact, by using writing. Communication is defined as a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding. The term telecommunication means communication at a distance. The word data refers to information presented in whatever form is agreed upon by the parties creating and using the data. What is data communication? Data communications are the exchange of data between two devices via some form of transmission medium such as a wire cable. The following figure can be represent the components of standard data communication system,

Message: The Message is the information to be communicated. It is a combination of text,graphics, image, audio and video. Sender: The Sender is the device that sends the data message. It can be a computer, workstation, telephone handset, video camera and so on. Receiver: The Receiver is the device that receives the data message. It can be a computer, workstation, telephone handset, video camera and so on. Medium: The transmission medium is the physical path by which a message travels from sender to receiver. It can consists of twisted pair wire, coaxial cable, FOC, laser or radio waves. Protocol: A protocol is a set of rules that govern data communication. It represents an aggrement between the communicating devices. Without a protocol, two devices may be connected

but not communicating, just as a person speaking in Tamil cannot be understood bya person who speaks only English. Click here for Networking basics-visual explanation:

LAN(Local Area Network): A local area network (LAN) is a group of computers and associated devices that share a common communications line or wireless link. Typically, connected devices share the resources of a single processor or server within a small geographic area (for example, within an office building). Usually, the server has applications and data storage that are shared in common by multiple computer users. A local area network may serve as few as two or three users (for example, in a home network) or as many as thousands of users (for example, in an FDDI network).

MAN(Metropolian Area Network): A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a network that interconnects users with computer resources in a geographic area or region larger than that covered by even a large local area network (LAN) but smaller than the area covered by a wide area network (WAN). The term is applied to the interconnection of networks in a city into a single larger network (which may then also offer efficient connection to a wide area network). It is also used to mean the interconnection of several local area networks by bridging them with backbone lines. The latter usage is also sometimes referred to as a campus network. Examples of metropolitan area networks of various sizes can be found in the metropolitan areas of Bangalore, Karnadaka; chennai, Tamilnadu; and Mumbai, Maharastra. Large universities also sometimes use the term to describe their networks. A recent trend is the installation of wireless MANs.

WAN(Wide Area Network): A Wide Area Network ( WAN) is a computer network covering multiple distance areas, which may spread across the entire world. WANs often connect multiple smaller networks, such as local area networks (LANs) or metro area networks (MANs). The world's most popular WAN is the Internet. Some segments of the Internet are also WANs in themselves.WAN must be able to grow as needed to cover multiple cities, even countries and continents.

Common examples of area network types are:

WLAN - Wireless Local Area Network SAN - Storage Area Network, System Area Network, Server Area Network, or sometimes Small Area Network CAN - Campus Area Network, Controller Area Network, or sometimes Cluster Area Network PAN - Personal Area Network DAN - Desk Area Network

Signals and Modulation

Data transmission is the transfer of data from point-to-point often represented as an electro-magnetic signal over a physical point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication channel. Examples of such channels are copper wires, optical fibers, wireless communication channels, and storage media. Although data transferred may be exclusively analog signals, in modern times, transferred data is most often be a digital bit stream that may origin from a digital information source , for example a computer or a keyboard, or from a digitized analog signal, for example an audio or video signal. Needs for Modulation:

In shortly it improves the signal strength . means the low frequency signal can't transmit long distance here low frequency signal means low strength (weak signal) ,when we modulate that signal

it can be transmitted long distance. while it transmit long distance i.e., nothing but it's strength s improves.

Reduces noise or distortion. Multiplexing means we r using frequency translation theorem. We transmit large amount of information at long distances.i.e., narrow banding the signal. Reduce antenna height.

Amplitude modulation
Introduction:Amplitude modulation or AM as it is often called, is a form of modulation used for radio transmissions for broadcasting and two way radio communication applications. Although one of the earliest used forms of modulation it is still in widespread use today. In order that a radio signal can carry audio or other information for broadcasting or for two way radio communication, it must be modulated or changed in some way. Although there are a number of ways in which a radio signal may be modulated, one of the easiest, and one of the first methods to be used was to change its amplitude in line with variations of the sound. The basic concept surrounding what is amplitude modulation, AM, is quite straightforward. The amplitude of the signal is changed in line with the instantaneous intensity of the sound. In this way the radio frequency signal has a representation of the sound wave superimposed in it. In view of the way the basic signal "carries" the sound or modulation, the radio frequency signal is often termed the "carrier".

Advantages of Amplitude Modulation, AM : There are several advantages of amplitude modulation, and some of these reasons have meant that it is still in widespread use today:

It is simple to implement it can be demodulated using a circuit consisting of very few components AM receivers are very cheap as no specialised components are needed

Disadvantages of Amplitude Modulation, AM Amplitude modulation is a very basic form of modulation, and although its simplicity is one of its major advantages, other more sophisticated systems provide a number of advantages. Accordingly it is worth looking at some of the disadvantages of amplitude modulation.

It is not efficient in terms of its power usage It is not efficient in terms of its use of bandwidth, requiring a bandwidth equal to twice that of the highest audio frequency

It is prone to high levels of noise because most noise is amplitude based and obviously AM detectors are sensitive to it.

Analog and Digital Signals

Analog Signal: An analog or analogue signal is any variable signal continuous in both time and amplitude. It differs from a digital signal in that small fluctuations in the signal are meaningful. Analog is usually thought of in an electrical context, however mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and other systems may also use analog signals. The word "analog" implies an analogy between cause and effect, voltage in and voltage out, current in and current out, sound in and frequency out. An analog signal uses some property of the medium to convey the signal's information. For example, an aneroid barometer uses rotary position as the signal to convey pressure information. Electrically, the property most commonly used is voltage followed closely by frequency, current, and charge. Any information may be conveyed by an analog signal, often such a signal is a measured response to changes in physical phenomena, such as sound, light, temperature, position, or pressure, and is achieved using a transducer.

Analog Signal

Digital Signals: Digital signals are non-continuous, they change in individual steps. They consist of pulses or digits with discrete levels or values. The value of each pulse is constant, but there is an abrupt change from one digit to the next. Digital signals have two amplitude levels called nodes. The value of which are specified as one of two possibilities such as 1 or 0, HIGH or LOW, TRUE or FALSE and so on. In reality, the values are anywhere within specific ranges and we define values within a given range.

Digital Signal

Frequency modulation
Frequency Modulation(FM): Frequency Modulation (FM) conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its frequency (contrast this with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier is varied while its frequency remains constant). In analog applications, the instantaneous frequency of the carrier is directly proportional to the instantaneous value of the input signal. Digital data can be sent by shifting the carrier's frequency among a set of discrete values, a technique known as frequencyshift keying.

Pulse modulation: In pulse modulation, short pulses may do the modulation of a radio-frequency carrier. The simplest of these is the conventional telegraph, whereby information is transmitted by a code of dots and dashes, or by turning the carrier on and off.

(a) Analog signal, s(t). (b) Pulse-amplitude modulation. (c) Pulse-width modulation. (d) Pulse-position modulation.

Pulse-width modulation(PWM): In PWM the pulses representing successive sample values of s(t) have constant amplitudes but vary in time duration in direct proportion to the sample value. The pulse duration can be changed relative to fixed leading or trailing time edges or a fixed pulse center. To allow for time-division multiplexing, the maximum pulse duration may be limited to a fraction of the time between samples (Fig. 1c). Pulse-position modulation(PPM): PPM encodes the sample values of s(t) by varying the position of a pulse of constant duration relative to its nominal time of occurrence. As in PAM and PWM, the duration of the pulses is typically a fraction of the sampling interval. In addition, the maximum time excursion of the pulses may be limited (Fig. 1d). Pulse-code modulation(PCM): Many modern communication systems are designed to transmit and receive only pulses of two distinct amplitudes. In these so-called binary digital systems, the analog-to-digital conversion process is extended by the additional step of coding, in which the amplitude of each pulse representing a quantized sample of s(t) is converted into a unique sequence of one or more pulses with just two possible amplitudes. The complete conversion process is known as pulse-code modulation.

PHYSICAL LAYER

Provides physical interface for transmission of information. Defines rules by which bits are passed from one system to another on a physical communication medium. Covers all - mechanical, electrical, functional and procedural - aspects for physical communication. Such characteristics as voltage levels, timing of voltage changes, physical data rates, maximum transmission distances, physical connectors, and other similar attributes are defined by physical layer specifications.

Devices that operate at the physical layer include repeaters, hubs, network interface cards (NICs), cables and connectors. Physical layer protocols are CSMA/CD (carrier sense multiple access/collision detection), DSL (digital subscriber line) and RS-232 (which is commonly used in computer serial ports)

Data Link Layer