Chapter Overview

 Network Interface Cards

INDUSTRIAL COMMUNICATION  Hubs, MAUs and Repeaters
SYSTEMS  Bridges and Switches
Networking Components
 Routers and Brouters
 Gateways and Security Devices
Dr. BUI Dang Thanh  Other Network Devices
School of Electrical Engineering, Hanoi University of Science and Technology
1 Dai Co Viet road, Hà Nôi, Viêt Nam

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 Network Interface Cards Network Interface Cards

• The network interface card (NIC), or network card, is a • Transceivers:

device installed on the system that is responsible for – A transceiver is that portion of the network interface
sending and receiving data onto the network. that actually transmits and receives electrical signals

• The network card also is known as a network adapter. across the transmission media.

• Network cards that are installed on the computer as an – When the signal is traveling along the length of the

add-on can be installed into the system by inserting the wire, the transceiver picks the signal up and verifies

card into the expansion bus of the system or by that the data is destined for the local system.

plugging in a USB device. – There are two types of transceivers: onboard and
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 Network Interface Cards Network Interface Cards
• Transceivers (Cont.)
• Transceivers (Cont.)
– External transceivers:
– Onboard transceivers: – The actual media connection is made external to the
– Are built onto the network interface card. network card using a small device that attaches to the NIC
– With these transceivers, the media connector is built right via an extension cable.
on the back of the NIC. – These connections use an Attachment Unit Interface (AUI)
– Common examples of this type include RJ-45 receptacles connector, also called a Digital-Intel-Xerox (DIX) connector,
for twisted-pair cable and BNC connectors for thinnet on the back of the network card.
coaxial cable – The types of transceivers and media that can be served by a
NIC determine the appropriate connector. Each media type
has a typical connector type or connection method.

RJ-45 and BNC onboard transceivers on a network card

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 Network Interface Cards
• Transceivers (Cont.)
– Thicknet Coax:
– Uses a connection method that typically involves an external
transceiver connected to the adapter’s AUI port.
– This external transceiver has a connection called a vampire
tap that attaches to the media by drilling a hole in the cable
using a special drilling jig that controls the depth of the hole.
– Thinnet Coax:
– Thinnet coax can be attached directly to a network adapter if
an onboard transceiver is used.
– In this case, a connector called a Barrel Connector (BNC) on
the network card attaches to a T-connector.
– The T-connector has a female fitting that attaches to the
card, as well as two additional male fittings that attach to
cable segments or a terminator.
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Network Interface Cards
• Transceivers (Cont.)
– Twisted-Pair Wiring:
–The typical connector for a twisted-pair connection is called an RJ-45
connector.
–An RJ-45 patch cable can be plugged directly into the back of the network
adapter. The patch cable usually runs to a wall receptacle, which is wired
back to a patch panel and ultimately back to a wiring hub.
–Fiber-optic Cabling:
–Fiber-optic adapters generally have two connectors, one each for
incoming and outgoing fiber cables.
–The mechanical connectors that join the cable, called ST connectors, are
designed to pass light seamlessly across the joined fiber segments.
–In many situations, fiber-optic cabling is used to connect high-speed
computers and provide a high-speed backbone to which slower LANs are
attached.
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 Network Interface Cards
• Transceivers (Cont.)
– Transceiver Configuration:
– A number of network cards have multiple types of
connectors on the back of the card (called combo cards in
this case) to allow you to use different types of cabling to
connect the system to the network.
– During configuration, the different transceivers can be
referred to in the following ways:
» DIX or AUI: The card uses an external thicknet transceiver.
» Coax, 10Base2, or BNC : The card has an onboard thinnet
Ethernet connector known as a BNC connector.
» TP, TX, UTP, 10BaseT, or 100BaseT : The card has an onboard
RJ-45 connector.
– Another setting you may want to configure on your network
card is the transmission method of either simplex, half
duplex, or full duplex.
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Network Interface Cards
• MAC Address:
– Each network card has a unique address that is burned into the
card by its manufacturer.
– This unique address, known as a MAC address, is used in the
header of the packet for the source and destination addresses
of the packet.
– The MAC address is a 48-bit address displayed in a
hexadecimal format that looks similar to 00-90-4B-4C-C1-59 or
sometimes 00:90:4B:4C:C1:59.
– The MAC address is made up of 12 characters and is in
hexadecimal format. The first half of the MAC address is the
manufacturer’s address, while the last half of the address is the
unique address assigned to that network card by the
manufacturer.
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 Hubs, MAUs, and Repeaters
Network Interface Cards
• Hubs:
– Hubs are one of the most important components of a
• Troubleshooting Network Cards: network because they act as a central point for all
– Testing. network devices to connect to.
– Network Card Diagnostics – Passive Hubs:
– Loopback Test. • The function of a passive hub is simply to receive data
from one port of the hub and send it out to the other ports.
– Driver. • For example, an eight-port hub receives data from port 3
and then resends that data to ports 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.
• A passive hub contains no power source or electrical
components, there is no signal processing and there is no
regenerating of the signal to ensure that it is readable at
the destination.
• A passive hub simply attaches the ports internally and
enables communication to flow through the network
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 Hubs, MAUs, and Repeaters Hubs, MAUs, and Repeaters
• Hubs (Cont.)
– Active Hubs:
• Multistation Access Units (MAUs):
• An active hub provides the same functionality as a passive hub with – A multistation access unit (MAU) is a device to which multiple
an additional feature. workstations are connected in order to communicate on a
• Active hubs rebuild (regenerate) the data before sending it to all of the Token Ring network.
destination ports on the hub. – A MAU is a hub-type device for Token Ring networks with
• Using active hubs can increase the length of your network, because some features that make it a little bit different from a hub
although the signal weakens with distance, when the active hub
receives the signal, it rebuilds the data, allowing it once more to go a – The first difference you will notice with MAUs over hubs is that
greater distance. a MAU does not have collision indicators on it because you
• An active hub has a power source and built-in repeaters to boost the can’t have collisions on a Token Ring network.
signal.
– Hybrid Hubs:
• A hybrid hub is a hub that can use many different types of cables in
addition to UTP cabling.
• A hybrid hub usually is cabled using thinnet or thicknet Ethernet along
with popular cable types such as twisted-pair cabling.

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 Hubs, MAUs, and Repeaters
• Repeaters:
– One of the pitfalls of networking environments is that the
electrical signal that is traveling the wire is weakened over • Bridges:
distance as a result of outside interference. – A bridge is a network connectivity device that is used to break
– if two systems are too far from one another, the signal is so the network down into multiple network segments.
weak that by the time it reaches the other side it is – A bridge runs at layer 2, the data link layer, and is used to
unreadable. This is where repeaters come in. filter traffic by only forwarding traffic to the destination
– If your network layout exceeds the normal specifications of network segment.
the cable, you can use repeaters to allow the signal to travel
the distance by placing the repeaters at different points in the
network.

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 Bridges and Switches Bridges and Switches
• Switches: • Switches (Cont.)
– Switches, also known as switching hubs, have become an – VLANs: Virtual LANs are a feature of special switches, known as
increasingly important part of our networking today, because managed switches, which allow the administrator to group ports
when working with hubs, a hub sends the data to all ports on on a switch to a “virtual LAN.”
the hub. – When a port is configured for a particular VLAN, it is unable to
– If you have a large network structure, this means that you communicate with systems that are not on that VLAN without
have probably linked a few hubs together, and when data is the use of a routing device such as a router.
sent from one system to another, all computers see the traffic. – The purpose of a VLAN is to cut down on broadcast traffic
– This leads to a lot of network traffic, which eventually slows through the use of what are known as broadcast domains.
network performance. – Different types of switches:
• Layer-1 Switch
• Layer-2 Switch
• Layer-3 Switch
Switches
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 Bridges and Switches Routers and Brouters
• Routers:
• Switches (Cont.)
– Routers are layer-3 devices and are responsible for routing,
– Switch features:
• Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) or sending data from one network to another.
• ISL and 802.1Q – A router will have multiple network interfaces.
• Trunking
– Routers are typically used to connect the LAN to a WAN
• Port Mirroring
• Port authentication environment by having a network interface and a WAN
• Content switch interface connecting to each type of network.

– Routers work with layer-3 addresses.

– Routers use a routing table stored in memory on the router to

determine how to reach a system on a destination network
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 Routers and Brouters Routers and Brouters
• Brouters:
• Routers:
– A number of network environments use multiple
network protocols on the network to support different
network applications or services.
Cisco 1604 router with LAN and WAN interfaces – A brouter is the combination of a bridge and a router,
and it makes the decision whether it needs to bridge
the data or route the data according to the protocol
being used.
– If the protocol is a nonroutable protocol such as
NetBEUI, the data will be bridged. If the protocol is
TCP/IP or IPX/SPX, the routing features of the
Routers connecting LANs to a WAN
brouter will be used.
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 Gateways and Security Devices
• Gateways:
– A gateway is responsible for translating information
from one format to another and can run at any layer
of the OSI model, depending on what information the
gateway translates.
– A typical use of a gateway is to ensure that systems
in one environment can access information in
another environment
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Gateways and Security Devices
• Firewalls:
– Firewalls are a networking component responsible
for protecting the network from outside intruders.
– The firewall is designed to block specific types of
traffic while allowing certain information to pass
through.
– The firewall administrator selectively chooses which
traffic can and cannot pass through the firewall.
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 Gateways and Security Devices Other Networking Devices
• Wireless Access Points:
– Wireless Access Points (WAPs) are network devices that can
• Intrusion Detection Systems: be connected to the wired network to allow a wireless client to
– An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is a security device that pass through to get access to the wired network and its
monitors system or network activity and then notifies the resources.
administrator of any suspicious activity.
– A wireless access point also is known as a cell, which is a
– Intrusion detection systems are important devices that will device that transmits and receives radio frequencies between
complement other security devices such as firewalls. the PCs and network devices with wireless transmitters
– The IDS is an important device because it will notify you not only connected to them.
of suspicious activity against the firewall, but also of suspicious
activity inside the network.
 The wireless access point is
– Two types of intrusion detection systems:
connected to a physical
• Host based: intrusion detection systems monitor the local system for
suspicious activity.
cable, which connects the
• Network based: monitors network traffic for suspicious behavior. WAP device to the rest of
the network.
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 Other Networking Devices
• Wireless Access Points (Cont.)
– There are other forms of networking devices beyond the typical
network card; for instance, modems can be used to
communicate with other systems across the public switched
telephone network (PSTN).
– A wireless access point also is known as a cell, which is a
device that transmits and receives radio frequencies between
the PCs and network devices with wireless transmitters
connected to them.
– Used to convert digital data from the PC to analog
transmission so that the information can be transmitted over
the analog phone lines.
– The modem on the receiving end is designed to convert the
analog signal to a digital format readable by the system.
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Other Networking Devices
• CSU/DSU:
– A channel service unit/data service unit is either one device or
a pair of devices that allows an organization to get a very-high-
speed WAN connection from the telephone company, such as
a T1 or T3 link.
– The CSU is used at the business end to get the connection to
the WAN, and the DSU may be used at the provider’s end to
allow the CSU to connect.
• ISDN:
– The Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a
communication standard for sending voice and data over
normal telephone lines or digital telephone lines
– Two popular types of ISDN connections: Basic rate interface
(BRI) and Primary rate interface (PRI).
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 Other Networking Devices

• Wiring Distribution:
– Plenum vs nonplenum
– Patch Panel Thank you for your attention!
– Cross Connects, MDF and IDF

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