Types Of Network

TYPES OF NETWORK :

✡ LAN :

LAN stands for local area network
Local area network is a group of devices such as computers, servers, switches and Printers which are located in the same building such as in an office or in a home 
In other words in close proximity to each other the most common type of LAN is an Ethernet LAN where two or more computers are connected to Ethernet cables using a switch.

✡ WLAN :

WLAN stands for wireless area network
Wireless local area network is a local area network that uses wireless communication instead of wired communication. 
A wireless LAN is defined as having at least two devices that use wireless communication to form a local area network. 
A wireless lan will typically have a Wi-Fi router or a wireless access point for wireless devices such as laptops, tablets, wireless desktops and smartphones to communicate so in simple terms a wireless LAN is a LAN but without using cables.

✡ PAN :

PAN stands for personal area network
This is a type of network that is used on a personal level.
It's a small network that is used for connecting devices such as smartphones tablets and laptops and they connect to each other by using wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, infrared and near field communication (NFC) but they can also connect by using a wired connection such as a USB (Universal Serial Bus), IEEE-1394, Thunderbolt (interface). 
Pan's are generally used for transferring small files such as music, photos, videos etc

✡ CAN :

CAN stands for campus area network
A CAN is a network that joins two or more LANs together within a limited area so for example a CAN could be a university that has multiple buildings in the same general area that are connected to each other to form a larger network so these buildings could be different departments on a University's property with each building having their own LAN in their department and then the buildings are connected to form a campus area network.

✡ MAN : 

MAN stands for metropolitan area network
This is a larger network then CAN. 
It's a network that spans over several buildings in a city or town.
MANs are typically connected using a high-speed connection such as fiber optic cable.
It's a high-speed network that gives the ability for sharing data and resources within a city.

✡ WAN :

WAN stands for wide area network 
There is many man connections in large a large geographical area.
For WAN connections we need router, modem, switch, servers etc
A wide area network (WAN) is a telecommunications network that extends over a large geographical area for the primary purpose of computer networking.
Business, as well as education and government entities use wide area networks to relay data to staff, students, clients, buyers and suppliers from various locations across the world.

✡ SAN :

SAN stands for storage area network
SAN is a special high-speed network that stores and provides access to large amounts of data. 
Basically it's a dedicated network that's used for data storage. 
This network consists of multiple disk arrays, switches and servers. 
One of the main reasons for using a SAN is because SANs are not affected by network traffic.

✡ CAN :

CAN stands for controller area network
A Controller Area Network (CAN bus) is a robust vehicle bus standard designed to allow microcontrollers and devices to communicate with each other's applications without a host computer.

There are also other network like SAN (System-Area Network), VPN (Virtual Private Network), EPN (Enterprise Private Network), POLAN(Passive Optical Local Area Network), But we will cover/discuss it in our future posts.