CertiGuide to Network+  9  Chapter 0000:  Network Basics

IV  VLANs – Creating Virtual LAN’s 1 Sneaker Net

Welcome to your first list of network models. Networks, being designed by engineers, tend to be described in terms of conceptual models of different sorts. These models provide a convenient, somewhat abstract, way of looking at the capabilities or structure of a network, independent of the physical components used to put it together.

As we go through these academic models, we try to illustrate them with “real world” examples that are likely to be familiar to you, to give you a reference point. Sometimes we don’t get there until a chapter or two later, in order to keep the topic flowing appropriately. If you start to wonder, “Why should I care about this?” make a note about it, and keep reading.

As noted earlier in this chapter, networking is used to share valuable resources. The nature (type) of these resources could be physically expensive devices, such as a color laser printer, or intrinsic in value, such as a customer database.

There are three primary resource-sharing models in the computing world:

1. Sneaker net
   
   
2. Peer-to-Peer
   
   
3. Client/Server

Any given network (LAN, MAN, WAN, VLAN) typically uses a mix of Peer-to-Peer and Client/Server models for resource sharing, occasionally resorting to Sneaker net-like tactics for resource sharing activities not supported by the formal network.

IV  VLANs – Creating Virtual LAN’s 1 Sneaker Net