What is LAN?

What is LAN?

A LAN is a local area network which interconnects network components present geographically close to each other or you can say all the Local area network to connect close devices to each other such as in a single room, the floor of a building, within a building or on campus.
LAN can span from very small sizes, like small office/home office, to a large corporation or in an Enterprise environment.
Basically a LAN infrastructure is owned by a company or organization to share its devices or resources in a local area with the help of the network.

What are the components of LAN?

Common components you can see in a LAN network is Computers/PCs, Laptops, and servers.
Networking components like Router, Switch, Hub, firewall Access Point, IDS/IPS, and many more.
Also NIC and media type like wired or wireless also the components of LAN.
The protocol mostly used in LAN is "Ethernet protocol" to share resources and data.
"Ethernet" is by far the most common type of LAN protocol.

What is the Function of LAN?

The main function of all of these LAN components is to allow users to access applications and data, to share resources like printers and storage devices, computers to connect to other network components to share information and utilize resources in the LAN network.

Today Ethernet is the most common Layer 2 protocol implemented in a company network.

Examples of LAN technologies.

Ethernet, Token Ring and Wireless (WLAN) using The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 are examples of standard LAN technologies.

LAN Topologies:

LAN has the following topologies:

·         Star Topology

·         Bus Topology

·         Ring Topology

·         Mesh Topology

·         Hybrid Topology

·         Tree Topology