What Is An Intranet? Definition and Uses...

An intranet is basically a private web based network. It uses all of the technology of the internet but is safe and protected behind a firewall that keeps unauthorized personnel out. Companies have been using them for years as a method of streamlining their internal communications.

Because a web browser can run on any type of computer, the need to maintain multiple paper copies of documents that are constantly changing can be eliminated. Documents like training manuals, internal phone books, procedure manuals, benefits information, employee handbooks, requisition forms, etc. can be maintained as electronic documents and updated at almost no cost. The savings in paper and other material costs can be significant

But the most powerful aspect of an intranet is its ability to display information in the same format to every computer being used. That allows all of the different software and databases a company uses to be available to all employees without any special equipment or software being installed on their systems.

This universal availability of information is sparking an era of collaboration unlike anything ever seen before. The departmental barriers that exist in many companies are slowing breaking down because now colleagues can share information readily using the company intranet.

Options for implementing an intranet

There are a variety of options for setting up an intranet. They include building your own intranet technology, purchasing and installing third-party software, or purchasing access through an extranet ASP. Here is a quick summary of the advantages and disadvantages of each approach:

1. Building it yourself
Advantages: Complete control of user interface design; ability to customize level of functionality; integration into internal systems, and direct access to user activity.

Disadvantages: High up-front development cost; requires staff expertise in the development of extranets, commitment of internal staff for 6 months to a year for planning, execution, review and implementation; and an ongoing commitment of internal staff for internal and client support, hosting, maintenance and upgrades.

2. Purchasing/installing third-party software
Advantages: Proven track-record of packaged solution; ability to choose functions and to
customize user interface, more rapid implementation compared to building it yourself.

Disadvantages: High up-front purchase cost; commitment of internal staff for customization and implementation; on-going commitment of internal staff for internal and client support, hosting, maintenance and upgrades; and extensive internal and client training

3. Using a Service Provider (ASP)
Advantages: Proven track-record of the application; low cost of entry and predictable cost over time; virtually immediate implementation; no commitment of internal staff for internal support, hosting, or maintenance; and upgrades at no cost by extranet experts, and savings on internal server use.

Disadvantages: Less freedom in user interface design, and fixed functionality.

In the final analysis…
The approach you choose depends on how you work, the technical and financial resources at your disposal, and how rapidly you need to move forward.

What is search engine gateway?

Navino launched its search engine gateway service recently. For most of the Internet surfers, search engine gateway is a pretty new concept compared with meta search engine or multi search engine. Put it in simple, it is a web service, which can let you search the best information from the best content providers in one website.

When we try to find information everyday, most of us might go to Google.com. Yes, it's true. Most of the time, Google works well. But does Google return the best information? I guess you would agree that the search engine's ranking algorithm could only give a good answer, but not the best. Well, you may ask, where can I get the BEST? The best weather information? The best book information? The best price for your favorite mp3 player? The short answer is from the brain, from the hand picked information. Therefore, Navino's editors and their users give out that the best weather website is weather.com, the best book website is amazon.com and the best price information is froogle.

Besides best hand picked information resources, Navino also provide the search engine gateway technology. Using this technology, you can search all the best website at Navino. All you need to do is to add a unique search name before your searching keywords.

For example, if you want to search New York's weather, you can search with ‘weather New York' and you will be forwarded to weather.com with the keyword ‘New York'. If you want to search finance books, you can search with ‘book finance' and you will be forwarded to amazon.com with the keyword ‘finance'. If you want to search the best price for your favorite mp3 player, you can search with ‘price mp3 player' and you will be forwarded to froogle with the keyword ‘mp3 player'.

Navino search engine gateway is very convenient for your everyday web surfing. Besides that, Navino also provides its users to customize their own search engine gateway and allows its users to recommend search names for public use.

Why use URL shorteners?

You must have seen them. Web addresses like http://tinyurl.com/2gj2z3 which, when you click on them, take you to another web page. Why use them? Are there any risks in using them?

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It's the posh technical term for a web address. Web addresses normally take the form http://www.somesite.com/somepage.html, which is not too much of a problem. But some site names can get very long, and so can page names. The increased use of database-driven sites mean that URLs can get very long indeed, and most of them is computer gobbledygook. They are impossible to type in, if you are reading them in a print article, and often get corrupted by word-wrapping when they appear in an email or blog posting.

An URL shortener is a web service that takes a long address that's hard to type, and turns it into a short one. You should use them in articles for print publication, classified ads, emails, blog and forum postings, anywhere there is a danger that the full address may be corrupted, or that someone may need to type the address into a browser manually.

But there is a danger in using short URLs that may make people afraid to use them. The short address disguises the real destination. This makes it easy for somebody to post an innocent looking message encouraging people to click on a link that takes them to a site which infects their computer with spyware, or something equally undesirable.

Some URL shortening services have tried to address this problem. The most well-known service, TinyURL.com, has an optional preview page that shows you the target address before you go there. But you have to know to type "preview" in front of the address, or visit the site and set it as a permanent option. Those who don't know about this are still vulnerable to deception.

A safe URL shortener would not allow the creation of links to undesirable sites. It would also always display a preview page, so the user always sees where the link is taking them before they go there. xaddr.com uses Internet blacklists to prevent its use to disguise sites that are advertised by spam. Its preview page offers a link to McAfee's Site Advisor, which can be used to check the safety of the destination.

Next time you need to write a long web address, use an URL shortener. But to encourage confidence that no harm will come from clicking the link, pick a safe one.

Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and Network Infrastructure

It is a hierarchical representation of all the objects and their attributes available on the network. It enables administrators to manage the network resources, i.e., computers, users, printers, shared folders, etc., in an easy way. The logical structure represented by Active Directory consists of forests, trees, domains, organizational units, and individual objects. This structure is completely independent from the physical structure of the network, and allows administrators to manage domains according to the organizational needs without bothering about the physical network structure.

Following is the description of all logical components of the Active Directory structure:


Forest: A forest is the outermost boundary of an Active Directory structure. It is a group of multiple domain trees that share a common schema but do not form a contiguous namespace. It is created when the first Active Directory-based computer is installed on a network. There is at least one forest on a network. The first domain in a forest is called a root domain. It controls the schema and domain naming for the entire forest. It can be separately removed from the forest. Administrators can create multiple forests and then create trust relationships between specific domains in those forests, depending upon the organizational needs.


Trees: A hierarchical structure of multiple domains organized in the Active Directory forest is referred to as a tree. It consists of a root domain and several child domains. The first domain created in a tree becomes the root domain. Any domain added to the root domain becomes its child, and the root domain becomes its parent. The parent-child hierarchy continues until the terminal node is reached. All domains in a tree share a common schema, which is defined at the forest level. Depending upon the organizational needs, multiple domain trees can be included in a forest.


Domains: A domain is the basic organizational structure of a Windows Server 2003 networking model. It logically organizes the resources on a network and defines a security boundary in Active Directory. The directory may contain more than one domain, and each domain follows its own security policy and trust relationships with other domains. Almost all the organizations having a large network use domain type of networking model to enhance network security and enable administrators to efficiently manage the entire network.


Objects: Active Directory stores all network resources in the form of objects in a hierarchical structure of containers and subcontainers, thereby making them easily accessible and manageable. Each object class consists of several attributes. Whenever a new object is created for a particular class, it automatically inherits all attributes from its member class. Although the Windows Server 2003 Active Directory defines its default set of objects, administrators can modify it according to the organizational needs.


Organizational Unit (OU): It is the least abstract component of the Windows Server 2003 Active Directory. It works as a container into which resources of a domain can be placed. Its logical structure is similar to an organization's functional structure. It allows creating administrative boundaries in a domain by delegating separate administrative tasks to the administrators on the domain. Administrators can create multiple Organizational Units in the network. They can also create nesting of OUs, which means that other OUs can be created within an OU.
In a large complex network, the Active Directory service provides a single point of management for the administrators by placing all the network resources at a single place. It allows administrators to effectively delegate administrative tasks as well as facilitate fast searching of network resources. It is easily scalable, i.e., administrators can add a large number of resources to it without having additional administrative burden. It is accomplished by partitioning the directory database, distributing it across other domains, and establishing trust relationships, thereby providing users with benefits of decentralization, and at the same time, maintaining the centralized administration.

The physical network infrastructure of Active Directory is far too simple as compared to its logical structure. The physical components are domain controllers and sites.


Domain Controller: A Windows 2003 server on which Active Directory services are installed and run is called a domain controller. A domain controller locally resolves queries for information about objects in its domain. A domain can have multiple domain controllers. Each domain controller in a domain follows the multimaster model by having a complete replica of the domain's directory partition. In this model, every domain controller holds a master copy of its directory partition. Administrators can use any of the domain controllers to modify the Active Directory database. The changes performed by the administrators are automatically replicated to other domain controllers in the domain.

However, there are some operations that do not follow the multimaster model. Active Directory handles these operations and assigns them to a single domain controller to be accomplished. Such a domain controller is referred to as operations master. The operations master performs several roles, which can be forest-wide as well as domain-wide.


Forest-wide roles: There are two types of forest-wide roles:

Schema Master and Domain Naming Master. The Schema Master is responsible for maintaining the schema and distributing it to the entire forest. The Domain Naming Master is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the forest by recording additions of domains to and deletions of domains from the forest. When new domains are to be added to a forest, the Domain Naming Master role is queried. In the absence of this role, new domains cannot be added.


Domain-wide roles: There are three types of domain-wide roles: RID Master, PDC Emulator, and Infrastructure Master.

RID Master: The RID Master is one of the operations master roles that exist in each domain in a forest. It controls the sequence number for the domain controllers within a domain. It provides a unique sequence of RIDs to each domain controller in a domain. When a domain controller creates a new object, the object is assigned a unique security ID consisting of a combination of a domain SID and a RID. The domain SID is a constant ID, whereas the RID is assigned to each object by the domain controller. The domain controller receives the RIDs from the RID Master. When the domain controller has used all the RIDs provided by the RID Master, it requests the RID Master to issue more RIDs for creating additional objects within the domain. When a domain controller exhausts its pool of RIDs, and the RID Master is unavailable, any new object in the domain cannot be created.

PDC Emulator: The PDC emulator is one of the five operations master roles in Active Directory. It is used in a domain containing non-Active Directory computers. It processes the password changes from both users and computers, replicates those updates to backup domain controllers, and runs the Domain Master browser. When a domain user requests a domain controller for authentication, and the domain controller is unable to authenticate the user due to bad password, the request is forwarded to the PDC emulator. The PDC emulator then verifies the password, and if it finds the updated entry for the requested password, it authenticates the request.

Infrastructure Master: The Infrastructure Master role is one of the Operations Master roles in Active Directory. It functions at the domain level and exists in each domain in the forest. It maintains all inter-domain object references by updating references from the objects in its domain to the objects in other domains. It performs a very important role in a multiple domain environment. It compares its data with that of a Global Catalog, which always has up-to-date information about the objects of all domains. When the Infrastructure Master finds data that is obsolete, it requests the global catalog for its updated version. If the updated data is available in the global catalog, the Infrastructure Master extracts and replicates the updated data to all the other domain controllers in the domain.

Domain controllers can also be assigned the role of a Global Catalog server. A Global Catalog is a special Active Directory database that stores a full replica of the directory for its host domain and the partial replica of the directories of other domains in a forest. It is created by default on the initial domain controller in the forest. It performs the following primary functions regarding logon capabilities and queries within Active Directory:


It enables network logon by providing universal group membership information to a domain controller when a logon request is initiated.

It enables finding directory information about all the domains in an Active Directory forest.

A Global Catalog is required to log on to a network within a multidomain environment. By providing universal group membership information, it greatly improves the response time for queries. In its absence, a user will be allowed to log on only to his local domain if his user account is external to the local domain.


Site: A site is a group of domain controllers that exist on different IP subnets and are connected via a fast and reliable network connection. A network may contain multiple sites connected by a WAN link. Sites are used to control replication traffic, which may occur within a site or between sites. Replication within a site is referred to as intrasite replication, and that between sites is referred to as intersite replication. Since all domain controllers within a site are generally connected by a fast LAN connection, the intrasite replication is always in uncompressed form. Any changes made in the domain are quickly replicated to the other domain controllers. Since sites are connected to each other via a WAN connection, the intersite replication always occurs in compressed form. Therefore, it is slower than the intrasite replication.

Wireless Installation Checklist

Buyer Beware - Ignorance can be a financial waste and a lot of hassals. Before you buy any wireless equipment, you need to be sure about what you're doing. There's nothing worse than having everything there and finding that it doesn't work in your house, or with your computers, or over the distances you need. Here's a handy checklist of the things that you really ought to do before you go out and spend any of your hard-earned cash on wireless networking equipment.

Interference Checks

While it won't stop a wireless network from working altogether, interference in its frequency range can slow it down significantly, as well as reducing its range. If something is causing interference, the first thing you'll know about it is when your connection stops working -- unless you know what to look for.

There are two very common causes of wireless interference: wireless phones and microwave ovens. 2.4Ghz, the most common wireless networking frequency, is also a commonly-used wireless phone frequency. It is possible, though, to find phones that use other frequencies. Microwave ovens, on the other hand, operate at around 2.4Ghz by definition. It should be alright to have devices like these in your house, but certainly not in the same room as any computer that you plan to use a wireless connection with.

Wall Construction

Wireless can, in theory, pass through walls and other partitions easily. In practice, though, some walls are more solid than others, which means that they are more likely to block some of the signal. Note that it's only your interior partitions that matter, not the exterior ones. This does, however, include your floors, if you want the connection to work between levels.

Wireless does well with partitions made from: drywall, plywood, other wood (including doors), glass.

Wireless has trouble with: brick, plaster, cement, metal, stone, double-glazed glass.

Basically, it's all to do with how porous the materials are -- ones that let more of other things through also let more of your wireless signal through.

If you have a wall made of one of the 'bad' materials, it's not the end of the world. It just means that your wireless connection might have a slower speed or a shorter range. You may want to spend more than you otherwise would to get better equipment and overcome this problem.

Decide Your Budget.

You need to stand back, take a look at your needs, and decide how much you're going to spend. Do you have long distances to cover? Do you want your connection to go through stone walls? Each factor will help you decide how much you should be looking to spend -- remember that the more problems you have, the more power you will need. On the other hand, if you live in a small wooden house, you can probably just go for the cheapest thing you can find.

Read Reviews.

It's well worth searching a site like amazon.com for wireless equipment, and taking a look at people's reviews to see what the different brands out there are like, and what you can get for your money. It is always a very bad idea to buy something without getting a second, third and fourth opinion, especially if you're buying it online. If you can, try to get to a computer shop and see some wireless networking equipment in action before you commit yourself.

Install and Update Windows XP.

Finally, your wireless life will really be improved if you have the latest version of Windows. Because wireless is such a new technology, it wasn't really around in any significant way back when Windows 98, ME and 2000 were released, and support for them wasn't built in to the system. You'll have a lot more trouble getting wireless to work on systems like these than you would on Windows XP.

Even if you've got Windows XP, though, that doesn't solve the problem entirely. Windows XP Service Pack 2 (an updated version of Windows XP) contains much easier-to-use tools for configuring and using wireless than the un-updated versions do. If you've been using your copy of Windows for a while without updating it, you should really make sure you've got all the latest updates from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com before you go any further.

TCP/IP architecture model

1.    Network interface(Data link) layer
2.    Network layer
3.    Transport layer
4.    Application layer


Network interface layer
    The lowest layer of the TCP/IP model. Its task is to provide access to the transmission physical medium and it differs according to the implementation of the medium.

Network layer
    The network layer provides network addressing, routing and datagram transmission.  Used protocols that will be of interest further regarding DHCP are IP and ARP.


    IP protocol
It is the basic protocol of the network layer and in general the internet as a whole. It sends datagrams, which are independent units that contain information about the destination, source and the sequence number of the datagram. The sequence number is used for message reconstruction, since the delivery order of the datagrams might not be the same as their order in the message and delivery reliability isn't guaranteed at all.
IP protocol versions:
"    IP v4 - 32 bit addresses. Provides approximately 4 billion unique addresses which aren't sufficient at present times.
"    IP v6 - 128 bit addresses. The transition to v6 will bring (is bringing) higher security, QoS, packet segmentation and many more IP addresses. (the transition from IP v4 to IP v6 must be supported by the system provider)


ARP protocol
    The ARP abbreviation stands for Address Resolution Protocol. This protocol is used to find the physical address (MAC) based on a known IP address. If required ARP sends information concerning the wanted address to all the stations in the network - Broadcast. The stations consequently answer with a message containing their MAC. If the wanted device/station is outside the node/segment, the appropriate router will answer instead of it.

Transport layer
    The transport layer is implemented only in terminal devices and it adjusts the behavior of the network according to the requirements of the device/application.



Application layer
    The application layer is composed of programs that use net services to fulfill the needs of users. Examples of specific protocols are for instance FTP, DNS and DHCP.
    Application protocols use TCP, UDP or both services at the same time. So called ports are used to differentiate between application protocols, they represent a type of label of the application. It is possible to change the ports in the settings of the service, but each service has a default port that isn't changed for most services and is used as an unwritten standard.

"    FTP = 21
"    DNS = 53
"    DHCP = 67 + 68

Web Servers and Firewall Zones

Web and FTP Servers

Every network that has an internet connection is at risk of being compromised. Whilst there are several steps that you can take to secure your LAN, the only real solution is to close your LAN to incoming traffic, and restrict outgoing traffic.

However some services such as web or FTP servers require incoming connections. If you require these services you will need to consider whether it is essential that these servers are part of the LAN, or whether they can be placed in a physically separate network known as a DMZ (or demilitarised zone if you prefer its proper name). Ideally all servers in the DMZ will be stand alone servers, with unique logons and passwords for each server. If you require a backup server for machines within the DMZ then you should acquire a dedicated machine and keep the backup solution separate from the LAN backup solution.

The DMZ will come directly off the firewall, which means that there are two routes in and out of the DMZ, traffic to and from the internet, and traffic to and from the LAN. Traffic between the DMZ and your LAN would be treated totally separately to traffic between your DMZ and the Internet. Incoming traffic from the internet would be routed directly to your DMZ.
Therefore if any hacker where to compromise a machine within the DMZ, then the only network they would have access to would be the DMZ. The hacker would have little or no access to the LAN. It would also be the case that any virus infection or other security compromise within the LAN would not be able to migrate to the DMZ.

In order for the DMZ to be effective, you will have to keep the traffic between the LAN and the DMZ to a minimum. In the majority of cases, the only traffic required between the LAN and the DMZ is FTP. If you do not have physical access to the servers, you will also need some sort of remote management protocol such as terminal services or VNC.

Database servers

If your web servers require access to a database server, then you will need to consider where to place your database. The most secure place to locate a database server is to create yet another physically separate network called the secure zone, and to place the database server there.
The Secure zone is also a physically separate network connected directly to the firewall. The Secure zone is by definition the most secure place on the network. The only access to or from the secure zone would be the database connection from the DMZ (and LAN if required).



Exceptions to the rule

The dilemma faced by network engineers is where to put the email server. It requires SMTP connection to the internet, yet it also requires domain access from the LAN. If you where to place this server in the DMZ, the domain traffic would compromise the integrity of the DMZ, making it simply an extension of the LAN. Therefore in our opinion, the only place you can put an email server is on the LAN and allow SMTP traffic into this server. However we would recommend against allowing any form of HTTP access into this server. If your users require access to their mail from outside the network, it would be far more secure to look at some form of VPN solution. (with the firewall handling the VPN connections. LAN based VPN servers allow the VPN traffic onto the network before it is authenticated, which is never a good thing.)

Wireless Home Security Camera

Home security is an important issue for any person. A person’s home is their castle and they want to feel safe and secure. There are several security measures that can be implemented to ensure security such as alarms but one that ensures peace of mind is a wireless home security camera package.






What’s need in the package is a camera to fit either just outside the front or back door that transmits a wireless signal. The best one to buy would be one that has night vision to ensure you can see everything at night. The second would be a receiver. Some receivers have screens so you can watch what’s going on no matter where you are and others need to be connected to a computer or television to see the transmission.


If connected to a computer or television the live feed from the camera can be directly recorded to a hard drive or a cassette or DVD depending on which is convenient. Several cameras can be implemented to get several signals meaning more coverage of the home and the surrounding area.




These wireless home security packages are common and can be purchased at most electronics stores. They are on the expensive side but are worth the purchase for the kind of technology it has. With almost everything becoming wireless these days it was only a matter of time until cameras became wireless also.


Most people need some sort of security measure in place, not for protection, but for peace of mind that they are safe in their home. Although there are several other measures that can be implemented in terms of security, the wireless home security camera is a valuable tool for keeping an eye on things at all times. It will complement any other security measure you have in place and will not disappoint.

Protect Your Network From Identity Theft Now!

It is deniable that our works and lives are more convenient and easier when using wireless. We can work anywhere and that is why wireless networks are becoming so popular. Especially if you have broadband Internet access, a wireless router can give you instant communication with the world.






Imagine you are sitting by the pool and enjoying chatting through the Internet. Or lounging in the Jacuzzi listening to your MP3 collection is appealing to us all. Unfortunately, many, or even most, wireless units don't come with security features already functioning. This may not seem like a big issue to someone who is simply setting up a home network, but there are a number of potential problems you should consider.


Identity theft seems to be the most serious problem. If your network is unsecured, the personal data on your wireless electronic equipment is also unsecured. The order you just placed for a book at Amazon may have given your contact and payment information to an unscrupulous hacker! Nearly every town in which "WiFi" is common will have "War Drivers" and "War Chalkers" at work. These are people who walk or drive around town with wireless equipment, searching for unsecured networks. The "Chalkers" then live up their name, marking curbs and other public items with chalk so that others can more easily find and exploit your network.


In fact, not all "War Drivers" are hackers, of course. Many just want to use your network for free, but the risk is high if you don't learn how to protect yourself. You can usually find quite a bit of free information as to how to secure your network at the website of your router's manufacturer, or by doing a search in a search engine for a phrase like "secure home wireless."


In addition, there are also your neighbors who may find your network by accident and enjoy nosing into your activities and using your Internet access at will, slowing down your network speed in the process.


Even many businesses use cheap, home-use quality equipment for their company networks. With the poor security often found on small business networks, anyone with a basic knowledge of wireless can access sensitive company and customer data.


It is highly recommended that you hire service companies to secure your network for you, or else you will have to bear with a risk of being exploited. A search of your local yellow pages or an inquiry at your neighborhood computer store should yield professional help and get your private data private again.

Computer Network Management

Today it is almost inconceivable for a business not to have computers, whether it is a construction company or a high technology firm.  When a business has more than one computer, they are almost always connected together in a local area network. These networks may be more or less advanced and therefore more or less costly.






Companies invest so much (in terms of both money and time) in a local area networks because there are many advantages that a local area network brings to a business and how it is administered.


Some businesses use a local area network in such a way they are highly dependent on it always working.  If the company's network fails, then you may see all the employees chatting away in the corridors because they can't do their work.  This means big losses for the company and causes stresses on the employees.  All companies must consider their local area networks a vital asset and downtime must be avoided.  This imposes huge demands on the network staff to keep such networks running almost 100% of the time.




The advantages of Computer Network Management


One of the main advantages of installing and maintaining LANs is the opportunity they create for better communication and cooperation between employees and customers.


Security considerations:  Local Area Network security can be both a help and hindrance.  Comprehensive security is beneficial because it provides a central and safe strategy for data access and disaster recovery.  All information is protected by the design and implementation of the network security solution.  On the other hand, interconnecting computers in local area networks creates a security risk, since doing so makes it technically possible for intruders to access many machines on the network at once.


Cost considerations:  Installing a local area network is a relatively expensive project.  Servers, cabling, switches, routers and software can all be expensive and should never be purchased without expert advice.  Keeping the network operating and secure also requires a lot of resources and can be costly.


Surprisingly, a local area network can bring a number of cost savings.  Sharing resources avoids the need to purchase equipment for each individual.  Even more important is the security that a local area network can provide.  Data loss could cost a business a great deal of money and in some cases, cause the business to shutdown altogether.  Computer Network Management should require a consistent routine for data backups with regular checkups of data quality - a practice that will save a company huge sums in the event of a mishap.




Computer Network Management: preliminary analysis phases


The first phase of computer network management is to determine the source of the problem  (a preliminary study that looks into several options of differing scope may be useful here) and defining it in a specification of requirements.  Examples of what should be evaluated are different network operating systems, mail systems, and other applications.  The choice of hardware components should also be evaluated. This phase is generally aimed at establishing what the system should do, not how it should do it.




Computer Network Management: design phase


The purpose of design phase is to determine how the requirements of the specification are to be met. The current approach to large, complex projects is to break them down into smaller, more manageable subprojects.




Computer Network Management:  implementation phase


This phase involves the physical installation of the local area network. Cables are run, software is installed, and computers and other hardware are put in place.




Computer Network Management: integration and system testing phase


In this phase, commissioning of the network begins, and routines are adapted to users and the operating personnel.  The system must be tested, both to ensure that the network meets the requirements set out in the specification and that it is stable enough to perform the central function it has in the organization.




Computer Network Management: operation and maintenance


Local area networks have complex operating routines.  This is because there may be serious consequences when faults occur or unauthorized persons gain access to the system. Many companies have employees devoted solely to take care of running and maintaining computer networks.   These system administrators may deal with network issues such as performance, reliability and security of both hardware and software.




Computer Network Management: tools


Although an organization may have computer administrators on site, they must also monitor the network more than eight hours a day.  In fact, some of the worst trouble that arises with networks can happen during the night hours when nobody is using the network.  With the right computer <a href="http://www.securemycompany.com">network management tools</a>, your organization can receive the security of knowing that problems will be foreseen, prevented, and taken care of - and that your network administrator can be notified at a moment's notice, should anything go exceptionally wrong.

Decrease Risk of Security Threats and Wireless

There are nine categories that range from security threats and errors removal of threats to personal privacy.  All this represents a potential threat in wireless networks as well. 

But, the main concern in wireless communication is theft of equipment, malicious hackers, malicious code, theft and industrial espionage and foreign. Theft can occur on wireless equipment for easy portability.  User systems

Are entitled and not entitled to conduct fraud and theft, the user entitled more likely to do so.  Because users of the system can know what resources are owned by a system and system security weaknesses, easier for them to conduct fraud and theft?  Malicious hackers, sometimes called crackers, are the ones who get into the system without authority, usually for personal gratification or to commit a crime.  Malicious hackers are usually people from outside the organization (although the organization Can a threat as well). Such hackers could get access to the access point wireless network with eavesdrop on wireless communications equipment.  Malicious code include viruses, worms, Horse Trojans, logic bombs, or other unwanted software that is designed to damaging files or weaken the system.  Theft of service occurs when the user is not entitled to gain access to the network and use network resources.  Espionage and foreign industrial companies include the collection of confidential data, or intelligence information conducted by government eavesdropping.  In wireless networks, the threat

Espionage by eavesdropping on radio transmissions can occur.  The attack produced from this threat, if successful, placing the company's systems, and data at risk. Ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, and availability are the main objectives of security policy of all governments.

How do wireless network work?

Wireless networks use radio waves rather than wires to send data between computers. How it works as follows:

Binary Code: 1s and 0s

It is well known that computers transmit information digitally, using binary code: one and zero. This means both for radio waves, because they are the 1s and 0s can be represented by different kinds of beeps. Bip is very fast so that they are beyond the reach of human hearing.

Morse Code: Dots And dash

It works like Morse code, which is a way to send the alphabet over radio waves using dots (short beeps) and dashes (long beeps). Morse Code used manually for years via telegraph to get information from one place to another very quickly. More importantly for this example, though, it is a binary system, just as the computer system.

Wireless networking, then, can be regarded as the Morse code for computers. You enter a combined radio receiver and transmitter, and the computer can send equivalent of dots and dashes (bits, in computer-speak) to get your data from here to there.

Wavelength and Frequency

You may be wondering how a computer can send and receive data at high speed without the nonsense becomes chaotic. The key to the wireless network is how it will cope with this problem.

First, wireless transmissions are sent at very high frequencies, which allows more data to be transmitted per second. Most wireless connections use a frequency of 2.4 gigahertz (2.4 billion cycles per second) - the same frequencies to mobile phones and microwave ovens. However, high frequency produces a very short wavelength, which wireless network to work effectively only on short distances.

Wireless networks also use a technique called "frequency hopping." They use dozens of frequencies, and constantly switch between them. This makes wireless networks more immune to interference from other radio signals unless they are sent on one frequency.

Internet Access Points

The final step for the wireless network is to provide Internet access to every computer on the network. This is done by a particular piece of equipment called a wireless access point. An access point is more expensive than a wireless card for 1 computer, because it contains radios capable of communicating with about 100 computers, sharing internet access among them. Dedicated access points are necessary only for larger networks. With only a few computers, it is possible to use 1 of them as an access point, or use a wireless router.

Industry Standards

Wireless equipment from different manufacturers can work together to handle complex communications because there are standards that guide the production of all wireless devices. These standards are technically called the 802.11. Because of industry compliance with these standards, wireless networking both easy to use and affordable today.

Wireless Is Simple to Use

 Wireless networking hardware and software handles all this automatically, without user intervention. wireless network, for all the complicated ability, is far simpler to use than you might expect.

hacker attack at Sony's

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the security breach at Sony Corp., in which two separate attacks over the last month shut down Sony's PlayStation network and an online-gaming unit.

The federal probe comes as Sony said Wednesday, that its network might have been breached while it was defending it self from denial-of-service attacks by Anonymous, a loosely connected group of Internet activists who have successfully brought down the websites of other big corporations and was retaliating against Sony for bringing a civil suit against a hacker in federal court in San Francisco.

Also Wednesday, Kaz Hirai, Sony's executive deputy president, wrote in a letter to the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade that the company "has been the victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack designed to steal personal and credit card information for illegal purposes."

The attack on Sony's PlayStation network and Qriocity music-streaming service compromised the personal information of 77 million customers accounts. On Sunday, the company suspended service for Sony Online Entertainment, best known for creating online multiplayer games such as Ever Quest and the Matrix Online, after an intrusion exposed personal data for about 24.6 million subscribers.

Sony apologized Saturday and announced several "welcome back" freebies for PlayStation customers, including 30 days of free access to Qriocity for affected customers as well as 30 days of access to the PlayStation Plus online game service. The company will also provide credit card protection services to relevant customers, Hirai said.

New York Atty. Gen. Eric Schneiderman on Wednesday subpoenaed three Sony divisions  Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Network Entertainment and Sony Online Entertainment for documents regarding their security, CNBC reported

Consumers have filed at least two lawsuits in California against Sony and are seeking federal class-action status.

Pentagon hacker trainer

United States Department of Defense at the Pentagon was training his men to break or hack into their own computer networks.

"To defeat the hackers, you must think like them," said Jay Bavisi, President of the International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants, or EC-Council, told CNN.

EC-Council is one of several companies selected by the Pentagon to oversee the training of workers Department of Defense (DoD) United States (U.S.) related to computer security and provide a certificate when the training was completed.

U.S. Department of Defense did not see this as hacking. "Department of Defense Employees are not to rip off. They learn to maintain the network (computer) from the hackers," said Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh, a spokesman for the Department of Defense.

But the EC-Council's program called "Ethical Hacker Certification Official." The goal is to teach the Department of Defense workers maintain their computer networks.

Nearly 45,000 computer attacks on DoD recorded until mid-2009, according to records reported to the government.

Attacks against DoD computer networks rose 60 percent expected to increase until the end of 2009, as compared with the previous year. As a result the Pentagon lost $ 100 million dollars.

Bavisi said the training was focused on the art of hacking, using the same tools and tricks used by traditional hackers.

The main concept is that DoD employees will use it to pave the training into the department computer network, said Bavisi.

When they find a gap that can be used to attack, they will increase security at that point thus eliminating the threat.

Next they will act as bodyguards for the Department of Defense computer network.

"Their goal is to preserve the only Department of Defense computer network, although the way they use the same as the hackers generally. This type of training like that previously had been applied in the Department of Defense, on an ad hoc team," lajut Bavisi.

Now every section and unit of the Department of Defense will need to enter a training program hacking as an option for employees who terlbat in cyberspace security.

EC-Council have 450 partners who will deal with hacking standards that have been used for both business and civic organizations over the years.

The training takes 40 hours for reading instruction and 4,500 pages about the latest hacking techniques.

According to Bavisi, DoD employees who completed training and obtained certificates will not be assigned to pave the personal computer network or civilian network.

But other types of training, including ethical hacking, can be used to damage.

"You can teach me to cut with a knife and stab me then you can turn around with the knife," said Bavisi.

Payments received by the EC-Council between 450 dollars to 2,500 dollars depending on the level of training provided. Not yet clear how many people will be trained.

resource : http://www.tribunnews.com