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WIDE AREA NETWORK (WAN)

                  WAN covers a wide geographical  area. In  other words,  it  is a group of computers  that  are
                  separated by a large distance and tied together. It links different metropolitans and even countries
                  across national boundaries. The most popular example of WAN is the Internet: a collection of vast
                  number of computers spread across the world.





                        LAN                      LAN                                 LAN                       LAN











                                                      LAN                       LAN






                            NETWORK ARCHITECTURE

                  The network architecture defines the overall design of the computer network. There are two types
                  of network architectures.

                  CLIENT-SERVER NETWORK

                  This is the most efficient  network architecture
                  that consists of two parts: client system and
                  server system. One computer is designated

                  as the server and all the other computers                Clients     Internet
                  connected into the network are called the
                                                                                                                Server
                  clients. The clients can request services from
                  the server. This is called the client-server
                  network. The client does not share any of its resources but requests content or services from
                  the server.


                                                    PEER-TO-PEER NETWORK
                                                      An alternative  to  the client-server approach  is the peer-to-
                                                    peer approach. There are no dedicated servers. All computers
                                                    are equal and can share their resources to be used by others
                                                    and are therefore known as peers. This network is more cost

                                                    effective and required low maintenance and  works well in a
                                                    small environment.





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