Computer Networking

Networking among individuals and teams is an integral part of obtaining and providing information to other team players and management. Developing personal contacts within an organisation is important to understanding and keeping up to date with the needs of other as well as company policy. Networking also provides mentors who can assist with problem-solving, and increasing your skill level and business knowledge.

Many workers often make the mistake of learning only about those matters that directly relate to their own jobs. Instead, you should interact with customers and suppliers, and pursue networking opportunities. Otherwise, someone else with a broader view may scoop all those opportunities that come your way.

It is important to choose contacts within the organisation who have access to the sort of information that will be of value to you, your team members and management in making quality decisions and suggestions. The information you gather, will broaden your knowledge of the bigger picture of the business, how it runs and what makes it successful. It does, however, take time to build relationships with people whom you can count on and trust to provide reliable information as opposed to gossip.

It is advisable to consider the following when establishing reliable networks:

1 Who in the organisation has information that may be of value to you and others?

2 How can you help others in the organisation by providing useful information that they may need?

3 What is the best method of contacting them - phone, email, person to person?

4 Can relationships be built outside of the organisation - eg industry associations etc without compromising confidentiality?

By avoiding company and industry functions, you are probably limiting your oportunities to progress through the company. This can be perceived as being unfriendly, and can restrict your networking opportunities. It is a good strategy to attend events where people in your industry gather. This offer opportunities to swap news on leadership, markets, industry changes and your industry.

NETWORK GOALS:

• The main goal of networking is "Resource sharing", and it is to make all programs, data and equipment available to anyone on the network with out the regard to the physical location of the resource and the user.
• A second goal is to provide high reliablity by having alternative sources of supply. For example, all files could be replicatied on two or three machines, so if one of them is unavailable, the other copies could be available.
• Another goal is saving money. Small computers have a much better price/performance ratio than larger ones. Mainframes are roughly a factor of ten times faster than the fastest single chip microprocessors, but they cost thousand times more. This imbalance has caused many system designers to build systems consisting of powerful personal computers, one per user, with data kept on one or more shared file servermachines. This goal leads to networks with many computers located in the same building. Such a network is called a LAN(local area network).
• Another closely related goal is to increase the systems perfomance as the work load increases by just adding more processors. With central mainframes, when the system is full, it must be replaced by a larger one, usually at great expense and with even greater disruption to the users.
• Computer networks provide a powerful communication medium. A file that was updated/modified on a network, can be seen by the other users on the network immediately.

1. Access to remote programs.
2. Access to remote databases.
3. Value-added communication facilities.

Calling up a distant computer via a network is cheaper than calling it directly. The lower rate is possible because in a normal telephone call ties up an expensive, dedicated circuit for the duration of the call, whereas access via a network ties up long-distance lines only while data are actually being transmitted.