Networking 101 - Connectivity Devices

Networking 101
Connectivity Devices


So, we've learned a couple of things on basic networking. This is going to help us with the hardware part of networks which includes everything: from simple NICs to complex switches and routers. It might seem long at first but trust me, it's not the hardest thing we'll encounter.
(Sinisterly won't let me use the word C-A-R-D so if you seen "*controller" well, you can imagine)

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Network Connectivity Devices
Network Connectivity Devices are the ones responsible for physically connecting each one of our network entities. They are components used to share resources and files in an organized manner. There are different types of them, each with a certain objective in mind, but they don't differ much between a home network and a globalized company network.

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NICs
Network Interface *Controllers are the foundation for connecting your computer to a network. They serve as the intermediary between you and the rest of the world. These usually are built right into your motherboard but, sometimes, will be external *controllers that are inserted into one of your expansion slots. This means that they're the actual components that connect a cable into your computer. They take the data from your cable and spit it out into your CPU making sure that it's been translated.
Each NIC has it's own MAC address assigned to it, which is a 48-bit code used to identify the *controller, that looks like this:

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Repeaters
Repeaters are really simple. They are put into action when your cable isn't long enough to get from point A to point B. In fact, with a repeater you can use two different cables to close this gap allowing you to "extend" the reach of the signal. Not only that, but they're able to remove unwanted noise in a signal as to pass it on in a much clearer way.

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Gateways
Gateways are any piece of hardware and/or software that combine to networks that aren't similar. They are very complex since they work on various different layers of the

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to translate the data between the two.
A gateway is pretty much a translator for data.

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Bridges and Routers
Bridgesand routers have some similarities but we want to know what's different between them to know when we should use them. In substance, bridges can only check the MAC address of incoming data whereas routers can't:

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