INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER NETWORKING

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INTRODUCTION

Computer networks serve today as crucial components of the background infrastructure for virtually all kinds of human activities. This is the case with Industrial Engineering and any related activities.

The importance of these computer networks stems from their role in communication and infor- mation exchange between humans (as actors in any kind of activities) and / or organizations of these human actors.

In contrast to the situation several decades ago, a number of key attributes of the working envi- ronment today serve as basic new supportive elements of working conditions. Some of the most important such elements are:

• Computer technology has moved to the desktop, making possible direct access to advanced techniques of high-speed information processing and high-volume information storage from individual workstations.

• Interconnection of computers has been developing at an exponentially increasing rate, and today high-speed global connectivity is a reality, providing fast and reliable accessibility of high- volume distant information at any connected site worldwide.

• Global addressing schemes, structured information content, and multimedia information han- dling have become an efficiently functioning framework for computer-to-computer (and thus human-to-human) communication and information exchange, as well as for storing and deliv- ering large amounts of highly sophisticated information at millions of sites, accessible by any other authorized sites anywhere within the global network of networks, the Internet.

Computer networks and services themselves, as well as related applications, are briefly investi- gated in this chapter. The topic is very broad and there are thousands of sources in books and other literature providing detailed information about all the aspects of computer networking introduced here. This chapter therefore provides a condensed overview of selected key subtopics. However, emphasis is given to every important element of what the network infrastructure looks like, what the main characteristics of the services and applications are, and how the information content is being built and exploited. Some basic principles and methods of computer networking are repeatedly ex- plained, using different approaches, in order to make these important issues clear from different aspects.

This chapter starts with an introductory description of the role of computer networking in infor- mation transfer. Then, after a short historical overview, the networking infrastructure is investigated in some detail, including the basic technical elements of how networking operates in practice. Later sections deal with services and applications based on networked computer systems. Separate subsec- tions are devoted to the World Wide Web, which is probably the most important tool at the start of the third millennium for communication, information access, and collaboration. Some questions of content generation and provision are then investigated, after which aspects of future development in computer networking are briefly dealt with. Other subsections deal with a few practical issues, in- cluding some related to industrial engineering.

The following major issues are dealt with in the following references at the end of the chapter:

• Networking in general: Derfler and Freed (1998); Hallberg (1999); Keshav (1997); Kosiur (1998); Lynch and Rose (1993); Marcus (1999); Taylor (1999)

• Internet in general: Minoli and Schmidt (1999); Quercia (1997); Smythe (1995); Young (1999)

• History of networking: Salus (1995)

• Intranets: Ambegaonkar (1999); Bernard (1997); Hills (1996); Minoli (1996)

• Extranets: Baker (1997); Bort and Felix (1997)

• World Wide Web: Stout (1999)

• Multimedia: Agnew and Kellerman (1996); Buford (1994); Wesel (1998)

• Virtual reality: Singhal and Zyda (1999)

• Quality of service: Croll and Packman (1999)

• Security: Cheswick and Bellovin (1994); Goncalves (1999); Smith (1997)

• Applications: Angell and Heslop (1995); Hannam (1997); Kalakota and Whinston (1997); McMahon and Browne (1998); Treese and Stewart (1998)

• Practical issues: Derfler (1998); Dowd (1996); Guengerich et al. (1996); Murhammer et al. (1999); Ptak et al. (1998); Schulman and Smith (1997); Ward (1999)

• Future trends: Conner-Sax and Krol (1999); Foster and Kesselman (1998); Huitema (1998); Mambretti and Schmidt (1999)

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