Networking Technologies, Applications and Issues - Essay Example

Running Head: ICT Networking – Technologies, Applications, Issues Introduction Today’s internet is a gift of a project that was specific to a country and had a specific purpose. The project had been largely embarked on by some academicians and military technologists. It involved the formation of a network, which later took the form of a trans-platform gigantic inter-network. We cannot think of the modern world without internet. Internet operates as an inter-network that facilitates communication between diverse platforms and serves numberless purposes through an open architecture. However, the evolution of internet has been a complicated subject and it has taken quite a long time. In the past, before the inception of ARPANET, only IBM Mainframes could be connected to each other (Salus, 2008). The first attempts towards forming an inter-network were the activities and planning involved in ARPANET. ARPANET is the abbreviation of Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. It was the primitive form of the modern internet. It was less complex although, it could not facilitate communication between diverse platforms and was constrained in older form of communication protocol. Slowly and slowly, the scientists developed ARPANET into the gigantic internet with a complex structure but no global control. (Bidgoli, 2004) What Was ARPANET Originally Designed to Do? ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) was created by a research team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) of the Department of Defense, USA. ARPANET was designed to network computers and devices and used switching technologies of primitive form. However, initiated during the Cold War, ARPANET became the world’s “first operational packet switching network” (Miller et al, 2010). Lawrence Roberts of Lincoln Laboratory was behind the design of advanced packet switching technology. Today, packet switching is the main technique of global data communication. At that time, it was a new concept. Previous to packet switching, data communications were based on circuit switching (a technology used in primitive telephone circuits). Telephone circuit technology utilized dedicated circuits where communication was practicable with a single party at the very far end of the given circuit. So, ARPANET was designed to form a network that would help communication between devices. These devices at first used the circuit switching technique which later developed into packet switching. In the original form, ARPANET was supposed to be a centralized and controlled network environment under the auspices of the Department of Defense, USA. It was not intended to develop into an open architecture, trans-platform inter-network. However, the scientists were able to understand the importance of trans-platform operation with different operating systems and Local Area Networks. In this way, the power of packet switching was discovered in the ability of facilitating communication among numerous machines by breaking up the data into small datagrams. The ideas of link sharing and routing were somewhat consequential to the original purpose of data communication through networking the machines by ARPANET (Abbate, 1999). Also, ARPANET founded the basis of today’s networking and routing technologies since it pioneered in routing algorithms as well (Simons & Spector, 1990). What Solutions were found for the Main Design Problems of ARPANET? At the beginning, ARPANET used 1822 protocol for host-to-host connection. ARPANET was designed for transmitting 1822 messages reliably. The components of 1822 messages were (i) a type of message, (ii) a host address in numeric form and (iii) data field. But to add more reliability to message transmission, more fields were necessary to be appended to the 1822 messages. Hence, new protocols were needed to enhance the reliability, deliverability and link sharing of the data communications. The design of 1822 protocol was insufficient for managing multiple connections interconnecting different applications embedded in a given host computer. To enhance the design of the data packets, Network Control Program (NCP) was developed. NCP provided communication links that were (i) reliable, (ii) bidirectional, and (iii) flow controlled. This opened the way of developing higher-level protocols for more reliable and stable communication. Hence, the concept of protocol layering was introduced to the OSI model. In 1983, ARPANET’s principal protocol NCP had to be replaced by Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP). The reasons for designing and selecting TCP/IP can be enumerated as below: “Communications would be on a best effort basis. If a packet didnt make it to the final destination, it would shortly be retransmitted from the source. “Black boxes would be used to connect the networks; these would later be called gateways and routers. There would be no information retained by the gateways about the individual flows of packets passing through them, thereby keeping them simple and avoiding complicated adaptation and recovery from various failure modes.” Also, gateway functions were required to allow packet forwarding appropriately. “This included interpreting IP headers for routing, handling interfaces, breaking packets into smaller pieces if necessary, etc.” Last but not least, “global addressing” was required (Internet Society (ISOC), 2010) Why and how did ARPANET Change into the Internet? Internet grew from the original ARPANET. Internet was formed on the basis of the idea which lay down that there were to be multiple, reliable and independent networks formed of arbitrary design. This began as soon as ARPANET shifted towards packet switching instead of circuit switching (Stallings, 2007). Packet switching network acquired versatility with inclusion of networks that utilized packet satellite and packet radio techniques. Also, other forms of network were included. Today’s internet has evolved on networking that uses open architecture. In this method, the option of an individual network technique was not assorted by a given architecture. Rather, it could be assorted by the provider and inter-networking with other networks was facilitated at the meta-level. In the early days, circuit switching was the reliable technique. “This was the traditional circuit switching method where networks would interconnect at the circuit level, passing individual bits on a synchronous basis along a portion of an end-to-end circuit between a pair of end locations.” (Internet Society (ISOC), 2010) In 1961, Kleinrock showed that packet switching could be more reliable and efficient method of switching and data communication technique. Hence, special interconnection and management facilities between different kinds of networks became another bright possibility. In 1969, four computers were linked in the University of California using ARPANET (Reed, 2008). In 1972, Kahn developed the ideas of structuring an open architecture network at DARPA. Together with packet switching, open architecture technology finally helped the emergence of internet a lot. There were numerous technical reasons behind this, but the urge to synchronize diverse technology based networking environments at a global scale acted as a catalyst and geared up the process of evolution of internet. Originally, ARPANET was based on circuit switching. With the lapse of time, NCP technology was introduced. This was a preliminary step towards the formation of internet. Now we could share the network services through several applications operating on the platform of a given host computer. From here, the way to innovate and operate application protocols independently of the core network service was opened up. In 1983, ARPANET finally migrated to the realm of internet protocols along with the main application protocols. In 1971, Ray Tomlinson was the first person to send a network email. This was done under the banner of BBN Company. By the year 1973, the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) was finally implemented and thus file transferring was made possible over the rapidly improving ARPANET. With the lapse of time, RFC741 defined the Network Voice Protocol (NPV) that was implemented with less operational efficiency. However, it took almost decades to develop the modern Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) framework for more effective communication and telephony over the internet. Thus, today’s internet is the “conglomeration of research, academic, and government networks, combined with the ARPANET core network” (Halabi et al, 2000). Conclusion The growing demand for a network that could synchronize different smaller networks to facilitate data communication world wide led to the invention of internet. ARPANET was originally centralized, largely platform based network technique that was developed under the auspices of US defence. But it slipped out from the grip of a particular organization and now it prevails all over the world in the form of global internet. From satellite to radio technologies, Windows to Linux platforms and from wide area to local area, internet forms the backbone of today’s communication technologies. “The conceptual foundation for creation of the Internet was largely created by three individuals and a research conference, each of which changed the way we thought about technology by accurately predicting its future: Vannevar Bush wrote the first visionary description of the potential uses for information technology with his description of the "memex" automated library system. Norbert Wiener invented the field of Cybernetics, inspiring future researchers to focus on the use of technology to extend human capabilities. The 1956 Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence conference crystallized the concept that technology was improving at an exponential rate, and provided the first serious consideration of the consequences. Marshall McLuhan made the idea of a global village interconnected by an electronic nervous system part of our popular culture.” (The Internet, 2010) Nowadays, we cannot imagine that we develop a communication technology that cannot be orchestrated with the internet. Internet has shortened distances, helped people to people interaction. Today, we can transfer audio, video and graphics over the internet. Needless to say, ARPANET has been improved at a lightening speed to emerge in the form of all-embracing global internet. And the contemporary world of communication cannot be thought of without the inter-networking technologies and modern data transferring systems. Reference List Abbate, J.,1999. Inventing the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bidgoli, H., 2004. The Internet Encyclopedia. Hobokon, NJ: John Wiley and Sons Halabi, B., Halabi, S., & McPherson, D. Internet Routing Architectures. San Francisco: Cisco Press. Internet Society (ISOC). 2010. Internet Society (ISOC) All About the Internet: History of Internet. Available: http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml. Last accessed 7 August, 2010. Miller, F.P., Vandome, A.F., & McBrewster, 2010. ARPAnet. Beau Bassin: VDM Publishing House Ltd. Reed, D., 2008. A Balanced Introduction to Computer Science. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Salus, P. H., 2008. The ARPANET Sourcebook: The Unpublished Foundation of the Internet. New York: Peer-To-Peer Communications. Simons, B. & Spector, A. Z., 1990. Fault-Tolerant Distributed Computing. New York: Springer. Stallings, W., 2007. Data and Computer Communications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. The Internet. 2010. Internet History One-Page Summary – How Invented, Created. Available: http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_summary.htm. Last accessed 9 August, 2010. Read More