Networking Self-Teaching Guide: OSI, TCP/IP, LANs, MANs, WANs, Implementation, Management, and Maintenance

Chapter 10. The Network Layer

	It's not what you know but who you know that makes the difference.
	--Anonymous

There is not much difference between human networking and computer networking. You can be the most gifted human or the highest powered computer, but lacking the ability to share those resources, you can do nothing as far as the progression of humankind is concerned. The power of information is in its capacity to be shared. Since the evolution of wireless networking, information can be shared not only globally but beyond this world into outer space.^[315]

The number of connected computers on the World Wide Web is staggering. Two computers are able to share information between them without concern about how that information is to navigate over the Internet. This is the "who you know that makes the difference" portion of what networking is about. Networking is about being able to route information to a particular computer and receive requested information from that computer without a need to know the path it travels over the Internet.

Think of the Internet as a giant matrix with routing devices at every crossing point to aid in the movement of a packet of information along the cables connecting to the next crossing point. The route a packet of information travels can be different each time another packet of information is sent. The routing device's responsibility is to make sure that the packet will arrive at the destination it is intended for.

A computer is concerned only with ...