The History Of Computer Networks Information Technology Essay

Computer networks are very essential to todays globalization as the world evolves to an advanced planet in Information Technology. One of the key contributing factors of the Information Technology rise in the world is network and data communication because technology’s advancement is not only on the gadgets but the system as well. Networking started long ago by ARPANET. When Russia launched their SPUTNIK Satellite in Space In 1957.The American started an agency named ADVANCE RESEARCH PROJECT AGENCY (ARPA) & launched their 1st satellite within 18 month after establishment. Then sharing of the information in another computer they use ARPANET. And this all responsibility on America’s Dr.LIED LIEDER. Then in 1969, ARPANET comes in INDIA and INDIAN switched this name to NETWORK. In the 1960s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) started funding the design of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) for the United States Department of Defense. Development of the network began in 1969, based on designs developed during the 1960s. The ARPANET evolved into the modern Internet.

History of Computer Networks

In the 1960s, computer networking was essentially synonymous with mainframe computing and telephony services and the distinction between local and wide area networks did not yet exist. Mainframes were typically “networked” to a series of dumb terminals with serial connections running on RS-232 or some other electrical interface. If a terminal in one city needed to connect with a mainframe in another city, a 300-baud long-haul modem would use the existing analog Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to form the connection. The technology was primitive indeed, but it was an exciting time nevertheless. The quality and reliability of the PSTN increased significantly in 1962 with the introduction of pulse code modulation (PCM), which converted analog voice signals into digital sequences of bits. DS0 (Digital Signal Zero) became the basic 64-Kbps channel, and the entire hierarchy of the digital telephone system was soon built on this foundation. Next, a device called the channel bank was introduced. It took 24 separate DS0 channels and combined them using time-division multiplexing (TDM) into a single 1.544-Mbps channel called DS1 or T1. (In Europe, 30 DS0 channels were combined to make E1.) When the backbone of the Bell system became digital, transmission characteristics improved due to higher quality and less noise. This was eventually extended all the way to local loop subscribers using ISDN. The first commercial touch-tone phone was also introduced in 1962.

In the 1980s, the growth of client/server LAN architectures continued while that of mainframe computing environments declined. However, the biggest development in the area of LAN networking in the 1980s was the evolution and standardization of Ethernet. While the DIX consortium worked on standard Ethernet in the late 1970s, the IEEE began its Project 802 initiative, which aimed to develop a single, unified standard for all LANs. When it became clear that this was impossible, 802 was divided up into a number of working groups, with 802.3 focusing on Ethernet, 802.4 on Token Bus, and 802.5 on Token Ring technologies and standards. The work of the 802.3 group culminated in 1983 with the release of the IEEE 802.3 10Base5 Ethernet standard, which was called thicknet because it used thick coaxial cable and which was virtually identical to the work already done by DIX. In 1985, this standard was extended as 10Base2 to include thin coaxial cable, commonly called thinnet.

The development of the Network File System (NFS) by Sun Microsystems in 1985 resulted in a proliferation of diskless UNIX workstations with built-in Ethernet interfaces that also drove the demand for Ethernet and accelerated the deployment of bridging technologies for segmenting LANs. Also around 1985, increasing numbers of UNIX machines and LANs were connected to ARPANET, which until that time had been mainly a network of mainframe and minicomputer systems. The first UNIX implementation of TCP/IP came in v4.2 of Berkeley’s BSD UNIX, from which other vendors such as Sun Microsystems quickly ported their versions of TCP/IP.

Network Processors

The network processor trend goes back to the days of the Internet boom in the late 1990s. It was launched with all the hype surrounding anything related to the Internet as “the new technology on the block”. As usual with a new technology, marketing people promised a new revolution in sight and it resulted in tens of startup companies dedicated to this area. Several applications were envisioned for it at different layers of the network architecture. As time went by, not all the high expectations were realized and the bubble burst out as the Internet bubble itself.

The high demand for increased processing speed (as a result of communication speed surpassing processing speed) and the demand for adaptability (as a result of convergence of voice and data networks) and the prospect of whole new set of emerging services added to the need for a new paradigm in network devices. High level of programmability was sought to support new services and protocols but at very high performance. Besides, because of faster change of pace, short time-to-market and longer product life-time were other important factors driving the concept of network processor.

In the 1980s, general or normal processors were used for networking process which was quite slow and took longer period to load. But later on the processor changed and now the networking processors are different and are made in such a way to boost the networking in any way possible.

This is an example how the network processor works.

Intel has been in network processor business for quit long time and has a variety of products in this area. Its IXP4xx series are intended for home and small-to-medium enterprise level and has applications in wireless access point, router, DSL, VoIP, . . . IXP435 is one of the products in this series and has been employed in routers from LinkSys, DLink and Netgear. IXP12xx series belonged to the first generation NP products from Intel but geared towards higher performance (OC-12) edge applications. IXP12xx line was followed by the second generation IXP2xxx series. IXP2400 was a major product in this series equipped with an XScale Core (ARM-based processor) for chip management and control-plane operations, 200 MHz memory interface, and eight micro engines running up to a speed of 600MHz each 8-way multithreaded with 4K word instruction cache boasting a total processing rate of 5.4 Giga operations per second. It can function as a single chip packet forwarding/traffic management for up to OC-48 (2.5 Gbps) wire speed applications.

Softwares

Back in the late 80s, they used specialized softwares to configure networks. It was then they started using Microsoft’s Windows Server application. The software was then upgraded to 2003 Server, 2008 Server and the latest is 2010 Server by Microsoft.

The development environment includes the Internet Exchange Architecture Software Development Kit (IXA SDK) which provides easy-touse graphical simulation environment for developing, debugging, and optimizing a network application.[12] The other advantage of Intel SDK is that it has preserved the programming environment so the developers can easily migrate from the older products to the new one and only be concerned about the new features and tools provided by the new product.

Security

The Security is a very important thing in networking world. Security purpose should be undertaken because without security, through networking one can hack through any information and alter the information for their own purpose. During the 1980s, the security that was used was not much but it was more than enough because during that time networking was a closed design. They used the network in the organization itself and used firewalls to prevent hackers from hacking. Nowadays there are a lot of security measures that can be chosen.

Conclusion

If you read carefully, the networking industry have evolved enormously from the late 1980s till today. The hardwares have been upgraded and the software has changed a lot.