Background

Sharing information has been, in part, a way of life. In the United States, computers first entered for commercial use in the early 1960s.[3] It has been unnoticed for a long time, and then when it was noticed people realized they could utilize this knowledge. Technology is never interrupted in its path of achievement of rushing to do this and to do that. The continual rush makes it hard to look back, and make a broader view of the entire situation.[1] It has always been evolving and will continue forever. Today, the computer has grown on people and we cannot live without it; today, people can share information and data in ways unimaginable in the past; today, sharing information is the sole basis of the world’s largest network – the internet. The idea of networking took place a while back when someone decided that they wanted to take data from one place to another and from that day until now computer scientists try to improve on what they already have.[11]

Importance of this Research

This is a proposal to study the effects of computer networks and how they are set up and maintained in terms of how they affect today’s environments such as, work, school, and home. It will study a proportion of the population that would significantly prove or disprove certain aspects of this research. These aspects could include problems such as, duplicate and running out of IP addresses, inhibited network growth, and troubleshooting difficulty.[10] If these aspects significantly prove that the setting up and maintaining them affect today’s environments, we could look into researching these findings on a much larger scale, and maybe develop a method or two into inventing new networking principles. If nothing is found, then we can be sure that we have a good idea of what is actually going on. Future research ideas may be discovered from this research. This could be new and improved ways of networking or further developing past ideas like voice-over-ip.[15]

Methods

I propose on gathering data from several networks near where I live. These would be the school I attend, the offices of large computer networks such as, IBM and HP, and my own neighborhood for personal networks. This research is primarily skilled based because I have to know where to go, what to do, and what to expect. Most importantly, I have to understand what is given and told to me.[9] The networks may or may not be continuously updated/changed and this will affect my research as a whole. The network calculation methods will be a very deep math orientation. This will mean I will have to know about certain calculations that are used in determining pipe loads, and traffic congestion.[6]

It will have to involve a mutual understanding that I get all the information passed about the network noted down.[7] This does not include personal information but information such as, updates to the network, any changes in hardware, any changes in usage etc. The monitoring of the network will have to be done in groups or some of it may need to be automated, as the researcher cannot stay up all night.[13]

Data should be collected for a long period somewhere around one year, and will be analyzed in several ways. For example:

• Amount of time to set up a network and how many people involved in the design.[8]
• Amount of cost involved in designing the network.[8]
• Who uses the network most of the time?
• Why is the network necessary in each situation (work, education campuses, and home)?
• How many influences are there in developing this network, i.e. administrators?
• How stable is the performance?[2]

Limitations of Methodology

The most important influence that the method will have is that of personal selection of networks and their administrators. The particular networks that are selected will primarily be based on how much personal knowledge there is on the particular networks. When we incorporate all the major environments (work, education campuses, and home), we hope to limit the problem.

Limitations of Results

The study results will be limited in the aspect of computers. This means that any other networks, such as telecommunications, may not be included. This also means that other aspects of networking that affect the population may not be included. The applications used in the workstations and on the server may be slowed down due to traffic congestion, and this may drastically affect the “fetching” of data from the server to the workstation. Another situation arises if the data is stored locally on the workstation, and this isolates it from the network.[4]

Further Study

The effect of networks and sharing of data and information can be moved up the scale and done on larger networks, such as telecommunications[14], video conferencing, and route networks (roads, highways).


Summary

The research is primarily based on obtaining results towards computer networks, as that seems to be the most influenced market sector today.[12] The background is suitable to both the people affected and the researcher. Methods have been defined but much more may be needed which money and resources limit. In terms of the results obtained, neither negative nor positive may be good results. Further research on the results may need to be done but one can safely say that positive would provide a better understanding of where we stand today on effects of computer networks in our everyday lives.

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