Computer Networks

The goal of a computer network is to fulfill tasks in a more efficient way. Some tasks can only be handelt by a network. The following list contains some of these use cases:

• Communication and Information Cluster: Providing devices and connection to handle communication.
• Function Cluster: Providing devices and programs that are only available on some computer of the network.
• Data Cluster: The logical coupling of separate data streams, which is supported through system structures that insure safety, consistency and topicality of data.
• Availability Cluster: Providing a minimum viable system, especially if some components of this system fail (error tolerance).
• Performance Cluster: Splitting a task into smaller sub-tasks, which can each be computed individually. The performance is limited by the maximum achievable parallelism.
• Load sharing Cluster: Distributing incoming request across multiple computer to minimize the load on the individual.

OSI-Reference-Model

See OSI-Model