TCP / IP is the heart of the Internet and the foundation of emerging intranets and extranets.
Being clear about the basic concepts of IP networks will allow you to conceive medium and large size local and corporate networks.
The exponential growth of the Internet
has led to the fact that there is practically no large company today that does
not have a certain presence in the network of networks. The Internet has
changed the way in which people communicate, acquire and share information,
going from being little more than a technological curiosity, to an
indispensable work tool.
At the same time, the successive
lowering of the cost of communications systems and associated software has
favored the approach of both a massive number of private users, as well as
small and medium-sized companies. Nobody wants to be left out of this new
means of communication, out of a market that will undoubtedly enjoy more than
considerable growth in the coming years.
Today's operating systems tend to simplify the Internet connection to a point where it is necessary to know practically nothing about the protocol on which it is based. Similarly, creating a small local network based on TCP / IP is not an overly complicated task either. However, if you intend to tackle something more complex, already within the field of corporate networks, such as designing intranets or extranets, interconnecting several local networks, subdividing domains, creating links to external networks, configuring servers, gateways, etc. , you will need to know this popular protocol in more detail. The present article tries to expose with sufficient depth all the precise concepts for the creation of TCP / IP networks of any size, under any operating system. We will focus exclusively on what are the theoretical concepts of this type of networks because, by simple extension, it would be impossible for us to include in a single delivery all the aspects related to the hardware and the topology of the networks that we can use. If you want to do some research, both topics were covered in the article Fundamental concepts of a network, published in PC World No. 149, December 98.