Network Access Points (NAPs)

What is a network access point?

Network access points are places which provide access to national and global networking traffic.

Remember that network access point was an access method that was widely used before they were replaced by Internet Exchange Points (IXP s).

Why need network access points?

Think that you want to send some data to a friend who is living about 500km away from you. How would you send the data to your friend. How can you connect to the friend and vice versa?

The most common method to do this is to connect to your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and send the data and on the receiving end the friend can receive the data from the same ISP or from a different ISP.

If you are on one network and the friend is on another network (two different ISP s) how can you connect?

That is where you need network access points. Network access points, as mentioned earlier in this blog post, are places which provide access to national and global networking traffic.

Consider the following diagram.

As shown your ISP may connect to NAP 1 and your friend's ISP may connect to NAP 2. Companies connecting to NAP s should enter into peering agreements in order to exchange information.

Now the two ISP s can share data, which intern facilitates you and your friend to exchange data.

Note: There is no need to always connect to an ISP to send data. In some areas, some companies (which are not ISP s) could act as ISP s or some companies (which are not ISP s) could connect to ISP s. Either way long distance or short distance communication can be done using network access points.

Moreover, there is no need that the two above mentioned ISP s connect to two network access points. Peering agreements between the two ISP s could occur within the same network access point.

However, the real need of NAP s occur when you are connecting to global traffic. Suppose you want to connect to a website called www.abcde.com.

You can request data from the server at abcde and in turn the server sends information back to you. The whole transfer of information between you and the server takes place through network access points (NAP s).

In summary, network access points (NAP s) are places which provide access to national and global network traffic. Internal as well as worldwide communication may take place through these network access points.

Companies themselves could act as NAP s or they can connect to a single or multiple access point(s). To transfer data, companies should enter into peering agreements (similar to protocols). By entering into peering agreements and connecting via network access points, these companies could minimize fault tolerance and enhance efficiency when providing access to data transmissions for their users.

Comments

Mesh / Fully connected topology

In the last blog posts we discussed about the star topology and bus topology . This is the third of the series of blog posts on network topologies. This blog post will explain about the mesh/fully connected topology, its pros and cons and the typical usage of its architecture. Mesh or Fully connected topology - In a mesh or fully connected topology all the nodes are interconnected with each other without the use of a common media. In this blog post: Advantages of Mesh / Fully connected Topology Disadvantages of Mesh / Fully connected topology Usages of Mesh / Fully connected topology For example, as we discussed, in a star topology , all the networking devices were interconnected using a switch or a hub and in the bus topology , all the devices were interconnected using a bus line. More topologies to discover: Bus Topology Ring topology Star topology However, in mesh or fully connected topology, as the name implies, all the devices are inter

Bus topology

In the last blog post , we discussed about a brief introduction to network topologies and focused particularly on the ">star topology . In this blog post we will discuss about the features, pros and cons and the usage of bus topology. In this blog post- Advantages of using bus topologies Disadvantages of using bus topologies Usage Bus topology - In a bus topology, all the devices are connected to a central cable (called the bus), through interface connectors (BNC connectors), as shown below: More topologies to discover: Star Topology Mesh or Fully Connected topology Ring topology In a bus topology, terminators are added, as shown by the red squares in the above figure at the ends, to prevent reflection of signals. In a bus topology, only one device may communicate at a time. To avoid collision of packets, all other devices should wait until the bus line is free for them to communicate. A protocol called Distribute Access Protocol (DAP)

Ring topology

We have already discussed about the introduction to topologies , star topology , bus topology and mesh or fully connected topology . This is the last of a series of blog posts on network topologies. In this blog post we will discuss about the ring topology, its pros and cons and the typical usage of its architecture. Ring topology - In ring topology all the nodes are connected to make a closed loop as shown in the diagram below : However, data can travel in a ring network only in one direction with the help of a token. A token contains some information and along with this information data is sent throughout the network. In this blog post: Advantages of Ring Topology Disadvantages of Ring Topology Usages For example, suppose A wants to send data to C and let us assume that the token is moving along the loop counter clockwise. Then first E receives the token and since the addresses do not match E passes further. Then D receives it and similar

Introduction and Star topology

Network topologies are all about how the networking devices are connected. Suppose you are provided with a switch and 4 computers, there are numerous ways that these can be connected. The following diagram illustrates some ways of connecting them : Therefore, network topologies is about studying and connecting such computers in different patterns. When we connect in different orientations,we have to particularly pay attention to the pros and cons of each method rather than just using a particular topology randomly. Therefore, this blog post will discuss about the different topologies, their pros and cons and where each of these topologies are typically used. Star topology- A star topology, as shown below, is a topology where all the computers are connected to one centralized hub or switch. Therefore, each of these equipment are given the same opportunity (direct) to contact the switch and all devices radially span out from the centralized hub or switch. In this

How emails are sent [the action of the SMTP servers]

What is SMTP? SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and is used by email carriers to send and receive emails. SMTP uses the store and forward technique to send emails between two connections. [Actually, there are two different servers running on a server machine : the SMTP server and the POP3 or IMAP server. We will focus only on the SMTP and the functionality of the SMTP server in this blogpost]. How does SMTP work [or how emails use SMTP?] ? Consider the following expected communication between John and Brendon: Fig 1 : Expected communication between John and Brendon Suppose John is going to send his email using Outlook express. First, Outlook express should connect to John's network and then to the SMTP server using Port 25 (SMTP usually uses TCP port 25 for connections). Then Outlook express should notify the server the message to be sent, the address of the sender and that of the recipient. Suppose Brendon's address is Brendon@pqr.com. Fig 2

Aditya Abeysinghe Networking

This Blog is protected by DMCA.com

Search This Blog