An assortment of at least two connection points, or Nodes, capable of sharing technology resources via a link
A Network is a Graph
If the network bits of an IP address are the same between two devices, they are on the same network.
If you are on the same network as another device you can talk to that device directly through Data Link Layer, because all Hosts on the same data link network must be assigned IP addresses with a common network part (Subnet) and Subnet Mask
If you are on a different network, you cannot talk directly to another device without going through IP routing first (Network Layer), i.e. going through a Router
Network Performance Metrics
Network Performance Metric
Let
be the time for data to make its way the sender’s Protocol Stack
- In modern times, often negligible Let
be the time for data to make its way the receiver’s Protocol Stack - In modern times, often negligible Let
is the wire delay (how long does it take to put the packet onto the wire) Let is the flight time (the time it takes the packet to get from source to destination, e.g. Georgia Tech Eduroam CAN to Chennai Datacenter) - Limited by the speed of light in the medium (of the wire)
Wire Delay
Warning
- Message size is often in bytes, whereas Network Bandwidth is often in bits.
- When Network Bandwidth is listed as K or M or G, it is powers of 10, not 2
Transmission Time
aka “End-to-end latency”
Message Throughput
Example
Link to original
Misc
“Big packets will fail to ping when there are network issues, but small ones may get through”