A Networked World

In today's lesson we were talking about networks and how they work, so I thought I would give you a quick insight on what networks are about and how they are used in today's society.

What are networks:

There are many different types of networks that we as humans use on a daily basis, these can run from a simple family structure network through to a full society network which includes a certain infrastructure such as governments.

Networks within computers:

This is mainly what we think of when we mention networks, networks within computers are as the name suggests just a connection of computers communicating with each other to create networks, but networks are a bit more complex than that and there are different variants of networks.

There is the Centralised Network in which there is a central computer that distributes information to the requesting computers the problem with this kind of network is there is a single point of failure in that if the central computer goes down so does the entire network.

Then there is the Decentralised Network this works in a similar way to the Central network system but instead of having just one central computer distributing information there is a number of these systems combined together so that if one system goes down there will still be other systems able to communicate with each other.

The other and most widely used network system is the Distributed system this is where every computer within the system is connected with at least two other computers this eliminates any single point of failure as information will still be able to get to the desired system albeit maybe not in the most direct route.

So now that I have given a very very brief description of what networks are, how do they work within the media industry.

Well in the television media we can say that they are working on a Central Network basis in that they distribute information out from one location this can also be known as a one-to-many relationship. There are many other examples of different networks we as humans use on a daily basis, but for now I'm sure you have read enough and want to have a nice long drink... I know I do so go on get your self a drink.


Oh one last thing here is an image of the talked about networks, maybe you might find it interesting: