-: In this lesson, I want to show you 2 2
what some of these devices look like. 3 3
We talked in the last lecture about hubs and bridges, 4 4
and switches and routers, and all of their different uses 5 5
and placements throughout the network. 6 6
But when you look at a small office, 7 7
or a home office network, you might have everything 8 8
in a single device, something that looks like this. 9 9
Now, as we look at this a little bit closer, 10 10
you can see the front, it's going to have 11 11
all the blinking lights and tell you what's going on. 12 12
But if we look at the back, we'll actually see 13 13
that this single device actually has 14 14
multiple different functions in it. 15 15
The first function it has, 16 16
is what's called the wide area network. 17 17
And this is where we're going to connect a cable line, 18 18
or a coaxial cable that's going to provide our internet access. 19 19
Now that gives us our external network, 20 20
that wide area network. 21 21
But if we want to connect it to our internal network, 22 22
we have to have a routing function. 23 23
And so there's a built-in router that routes 24 24
the wide area network connection 25 25
into this internal, or LAN connection. 26 26
Now the internal connection 27 27
is going to happen over these ports. 28 28
And these switch ports are going to be just a simple switch 29 29
that's embedded into this device. 30 30
So we have a switch, and we have a router, 31 31
and we have this wide area network connection. 32 32
Additionally, we have over here, all the way over here, 33 33
this is where an antenna gets plugged in. 34 34
Because this device 35 35
has a wireless access point built in as well. 36 36
So now we have a router, a switch, 37 37
and a wireless access point, all in a single device, 38 38
But there's still something else here. 39 39
When I talk about this wide area network connection, 40 40
we are actually talking about plugging in coaxial cable, 41 41
but converting it so it can talk with these devices here 42 42
that are on cat five, or ethernet cables. 43 43
To do that, we're going to be using a media converter. 44 44
And so in this one single device, 45 45
we have four different functions. 46 46
We have our switch. We have our router. 47 47
We have our wide area connection, or media converter. 48 48
And we have a wireless access point. 49 49
Now, do all of these things have to exist in a single box? 50 50
Well, no. 51 51
And in fact, most office networks, 52 52
we're going to break these out into individual boxes, 53 53
or machines, or functions. 54 54
So let me show you what that looks like. 55 55
Let's start with the media converter. 56 56
So I talked about, in the combined box we were taking 57 57
coaxial cable in and converting it, 58 58
so we can talk over cat five or ethernet. 59 59
Well, media converters can convert 60 60
two dissimilar signals any way you want. 61 61
You might go from fiber to cable. 62 62
You might go from cable to ethernet. 63 63
You might go from fiber to ethernet. 64 64
You might go all sorts of different ways. 65 65
In fact right here I have two different media converters, 66 66
and actually part of a set. 67 67
So one is the transmitter, and one is the receiver. 68 68
So as I bring these over here so you can see them. 69 69
I have my transmitter on this side, 70 70
and my receiver on this side. 71 71
Now you'll notice that they both have HDMI jacks right here. 72 72
Now, if I turn them around, 73 73
you'll see that they have cat five or ethernet. 74 74
What these are used for is for me to be able to take 75 75
a long distance run of video over HDMI, 76 76
and be able to push it over a cat five or an ethernet cable. 77 77
Now, why would I want do that, and send it 78 78
from this transmitter over HDMI, 79 79
over cat five, from cat five to the other one, 80 80
and then from cat five back to HDMI? 81 81
Well, because HDMI can only do short cable runs. 82 82
In fact, anything over about 20 feet, 83 83
you're going to have problems with your HDMI connections. 84 84
So if you're going to have a big home theater setup, 85 85
you're going to need some kind of a media converter 86 86
like this, to be able to run things 87 87
from your satellite dish to your TV, 88 88
or from your cable box to the projector, 89 89
or whatever those things are. 90 90
And that's exactly what we use this for. 91 91
This is to be able to go, 92 92
to do a 50 foot run from where our cable boxes are 93 93
all the way up to where our projector is, 94 94
so that we can then display the information we want. 95 95
And being able to do that media conversion 96 96
from HDMI over to cat five allows us to do that. 97 97
Now, the next one thing I want to talk about is a switch. 98 98
And we talked about the fact that this had 99 99
a switch built into it in this all-in-one device. 100 100
Well, switches can be small, or they can be big. 101 101
In fact, right here, I have a pocket sized switch. 102 102
This is an unmanaged switch. 103 103
Now this switch has five ports, 104 104
and it is an unmanaged switch, 105 105
meaning that is going to give me the benefits of a bridge, 106 106
and it's going to give you the benefits of a hub, 107 107
where I have a single collision domain per port, 108 108
and one broadcast domain for the entire five ports. 109 109
But other than that, this is a dumb switch. 110 110
It doesn't have VLANs, it doesn't have any of 111 111
the ethernet features that we're going to talk about 112 112
throughout the rest of this section. 113 113
Instead, this is just a simple, dumb switch. 114 114
And it cost me about five to seven dollars. 115 115
It will allow me to take the network connection coming in, 116 116
and then pass that out to the remaining ports. 117 117
That's all this is going to do. 118 118
And again, our combination device 119 119
already had one of those built in for us. 120 120
Now, the next thing we were talking about 121 121
was it had wireless capability. 122 122
And so for that, we're going to use a wireless access point. 123 123
Now, most of you, when you think of a wireless access point, 124 124
are probably actually thinking of a combination device. 125 125
If you look at your wireless access point, 126 126
and you turn around the backside, 127 127
and it has four of those switch ports in there, 128 128
it's actually a combination device. 129 129
It's a wireless access point, 130 130
with a router, and with a switch, 131 131
just like the one I showed you at the beginning, 132 132
But you also can have 133 133
just a wireless access point like this. 134 134
And as you look at this one, you'll see 135 135
that I have the two network antennas. 136 136
But if I turn it over to the side, 137 137
you're going to see there's only a single network jack. 138 138
And the reason for that is this is just a media converter 139 139
to go from cat five to wireless. 140 140
That's what a wireless access point is. 141 141
It's that simple. It's a very simple device. 142 142
It takes whatever's coming in over this cat five connection, 143 143
and it sends it out over these antennas. 144 144
That's all a wireless access point does. 145 145
Now, when I go back to the original one I showed you, 146 146
this one is a combination device. 147 147
It has a wireless access point, 148 148
but it also has a router, and it also has a switch. 149 149
This one does not. It's simply a wireless access point. 150 150
So I know we covered a lot in this lesson, 151 151
but what I really wanted to show you was that these devices 152 152
can be broken apart into individual components. 153 153
But a lot of times they're not. 154 154
And so when you go to the store and you say hey, 155 155
I want to buy a wireless router, 156 156
there really no such thing as a wireless router. 157 157
There is a wireless access point switch and router 158 158
combination box that is marketed as a wireless router. 159 159
But there is no such thing as a wireless router. 160 160
Or if you look at something and you see that it says 161 161
it's wireless AC, which we're going to talk about later, 162 162
it actually is going to operate in two different spectrums. 163 163
But technically, wireless AC only operates in one spectrum. 164 164
Now, the reason is because people who are marketing things 165 165
are marketing them to consumers. 166 166
And so they're trying to dumb it down 167 167
to the easiest thing to understand. 168 168
But on the network plus exam, I want you to remember 169 169
that each of these boxes, 170 170
and each of these functions do a different thing. 171 171
If they're talking about a wireless access point, 172 172
that's not the same as a wireless router, 173 173
which has a switch, a router, and a wireless access point 174 174
all combined together. 175 175
So we'll talk more about this as we go through the course, 176 176
but hopefully this was helpful to give you a general idea 177 177
of what some of these devices are. 178 178
Now, I'll see you in the next lesson.