Network software has firmly entered the life of the 21st century. What features does it provide to ordinary users? How is the organization of interaction between different people? What equipment is used for this? Here is an incomplete list of issues that will be addressed in the article.
Opportunities
What gives network software in terms of organizing collective activities? You can’t describe everything at a time. To start, let's focus on the possibilities of exchanging information in global and local networks:
- Email.
- Newsgroups.
- Conversations over the Internet.
- Teleconferencing.
- Newsletter.
- Real-time communication tools (which can transmit text, sound and images), as well as collaborate with other applications.
- Video conferencing.
All this is used to conduct personal correspondence, work with information resources, send out data, send necessary files and notify about news.
Used tools
Speaking about the capabilities of network software for organizing collective activities, it is necessary to pay attention to the software used. So, for communication over
the Internet, mail servers play an important role. This is the name of special programs that forward messages between subscribers' mailboxes. Compose, send and display them to the user helps the
email client. A network forum can also be used to organize collective activities, which is organized in order to conduct discussions and exchange news of a certain direction. For urgent meetings, you can use video conferencing. They help organize a lot of different software. The most famous are Skype and Raidcall. But all this is only a surface of possibilities. So, large enterprises are interested in creating their own
local area networks. And as a reasonable addition - a separate line of communication. Therefore, let's focus on the technical features of the implementation of such needs.
What is network software?
This is an important addition to any business. The capabilities of network software allow the organization to provide collective access to information and computing resources of the network, dynamically distributing them to increase the efficiency of data processing and optimally load
hardware. It is considered a good manners rule to have a prepared response plan in case of failure of individual pieces of equipment. Drawing an analogy, we can recall the earth's crust.
The organization of network software is such that some work at a higher level, the other focuses on the hardware. But everything interacts as a whole. In this case, the following software categories can be distinguished:
- General software. It is created by the basic applications of individual computers that are part of the network.
- Special software. It is created by application applications that reflect the specifics of the subject area for the user when the management task is implemented.
- System network software. It is a set of tools that support and coordinate all the resources of a computer network as a single system.
Operating Systems
Usually they mean software that is responsible for performing basic functions on a computer. On the network, they act as the foundation for organizing an environment of collective activity. So, operating systems, thanks to their components, provide:
- Inter-program access. In this case, it implies the possibility of organizing relationships between individual application software systems that are implemented in different network nodes.
- Access of individual applications to resources (from the point of view of the user, I / O devices are primarily meant).
- Synchronization of various software tools.
- Information exchange.
- Execution of commands received from the terminal that the operator enters.
- Exchange of a data set between different computers connected to the same network.
- Remote job entry (if you need to work from a remotely located terminal).
- Access to data stored in other computers, as well as the possibility of their processing.
- Protection of information and network resources from third-party access.
The usefulness of operating systems for users
OS significantly facilitate the work of man. So, thanks to them:
- You can set the sequence for solving existing problems.
- The operability of network tools (hardware and software) is monitored.
- Tasks can be provided with the necessary data that is stored in different network nodes.
- Implemented operational and planned distribution of resources, depending on what needs at the moment users have.
OS features
The capabilities of network software for an organization require careful configuration and a specific working methodology. So, it is necessary to take care of the timing and priority of receiving information by subscribers, distributing the list of tasks to be solved among all computers in the network, as well as assign priority degrees of implementation and, if necessary, change the configuration of the computer. Operational management allows you to receive and process information about the origin and goals of the processes, perform the necessary tasks and collect data about the work. In this case, the operating system acts as a dispatcher. It monitors the opening and closing of files, manages the used memory, maintains programs and protects them.
Networking features
This is one of the most important responsibilities of the operating system. Two approaches are considered with respect to supporting the ability of computers to communicate with each other. The first provides for their supply of network tools that interact with a standalone OS. The second approach involves their presence as part of the operating system itself (it is more widely used in the modern world). It should also be noted that the OS has two network functions: server and client. This separation is due to the difference in the tasks that they face and which the network equipment performs. Server-type networking software aims to manage resources. The customer-oriented one is engaged in servicing the needs of its owner with maximum efficiency and speed. In this case, it is necessary to pay due attention to the platform on which the software operates, as well as its characteristics.
Performance and multithreading
What should be the network software? The organization of collective activity is only in favor of working at a speed that is the maximum possible. Of great importance in this is multithreading. The essence of this process is quite complicated, but we will deal with it. So, there is a microprocessor that runs at a high speed, measured in small units of time - beats per second. They are performed regardless of the presence of any task. Therefore, the processor often runs idle. To minimize this, the device identifies several individual components that are involved in certain areas of action. By changing their size, you can influence the qualitative aspect of the team. So, bookkeeping, for example, needs to constantly receive data from the local network about available resources and finished products. Whereas the staff of auxiliary workers need access to it only to compile reports on the work done.
Information exchange
So that users can work efficiently, you need to think about high-quality network software (without forgetting about the hardware). So, for example, for remote access to the enterprise database, you can configure a modem, with which the work will be carried out, as if within the walls of the company. The only conditional limitation will be the slow data transfer. Also, to distribute access levels, you can use the means of group work. They will be useful in order to organize the consistency of versions of documents that several users are working on. It will not be superfluous to configure temporary backups that will be stored on a network server, a separate computer, or in the cloud. But it is necessary to check the standardization of data exchange. This will significantly reduce the likelihood of an error, and will also positively affect the speed of transmission of information packets over networks.