A Bit History of Internet/Chapter 1 : Introduction

The Internet is a worldwide system of interconnected computer networks. The computers and computer networks exchange information using TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). The computers are connected via the telecommunications networks, and the Internet can be used for e-mailing, transferring files and accessing information on the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web is a system of Internet servers that use HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to transfer documents formatted in HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language). These are viewed by using software for web browsers such as Netscape, Safari, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. Hypertext enables a document to be connected to other documents on the web through hyperlinks. It is possible to move from one document to another by using hyperlinked text found within web pages.

Nowadays, there are several ways that enable us to access the Internet. Technology keeps improving, method to access the Internet also increase. People can now access Internet services by using their cell phone, laptop and various gadgets. The number of Internet service providers also keeps increasing. For example in Malaysia, there are many Internet service providers such as TM Net, Maxis , Digi, Celcom, Umobile, etc.

Communication is becoming much easier than before due to the appearance of Internet. One of the conveniences is that messages, in the forms of email, can be sent at any corner of the world within fractions of seconds. Besides that, email also facilitated mass communication which means that one sender reaches many receivers. Some of the services made available due to Internet include video conferencing, live telecast, music, news, e-commerce, etc.theese communication network are widely used across the globe

Internet History

The rapid development of Internet started in the early 1960s, paralleled with the development of computers. Those scientists and researchers started to realize a great vision, a future where everyone will be able to communicate by using their computers. J.C.R. Licklider of MIT, first proposed a global network of computers in 1962 and was followed by Leonard Kleinrock from MIT, who published the first paper on packet switching theory.

ARPANET, which is the former of Internet, was a project launched by Military Department of USA. It was brought online at Oct 29, 1969 by Charley Kline at UCLA, when he attempted to perform a remote login from UCLA to SRI. In order to get attentions from public, they made the first public demonstration of ARPANET at an international conference at October 1972.

The initial ARPANET was a single, closed network. In order to communicate with an ARPANET, one had to be attached to another ARPANET IMP (interface message processor). Hence, the disadvantages of single network were realized and lead the development of open-architecture network and also different protocols of internetworking, which enable multiple networks can be joined together. E-mail was adapted for ARPANET by Ray Tomlinson of BBN in 1972. The telnet protocol, enabling logging on to a remote computer, was published as a Request for Comments (RFC) in 1972. RFC's are a means of sharing developmental work throughout community. The FTP protocol, enabling file transfers between Internet sites, was published as an RFC in 1973, and from then on RFC's were available electronically to anyone who had use of the FTP protocol.

Before the TCP/IP protocol was introduced by BoB Kahn, the networking protocols used for the ARPANET was NCP, Network Control Protocols. NCP did not have the ability to address networks further downstream than a destination IMP on ARPANET. By 1980, the Internet had reached a certain level of maturity and started to exposed to public usage more and more often. At the same time, French launched the Minitel project to bring data networking into everyone’s home by gave away a free terminal to each household requested.

At the 1990s, the Internet predecessor, ARPANET finally came to an end, and replaced by the NSFNET which serve as a backbone connecting regional networks in USA. However, the most significant changes of Internet at 1990s was the World Wide Web(WWW) application which truly brought Internet to our daily life. Various technologies such as VoIP, HTML, web browsers with graphical user interfaces, P2P file sharing, instant messaging which is very familiar to us nowadays.

Internet usage and benefit

It is globalization and modernization nowadays, Internet become more and more useful and come into everyday life. From the early days of computers to now, communication between people to people has been the technology’s most frequent used. People using the Internet to sent or received email. Using email leads people to spend more time online, encourages their use of the Internet for information, entertainment. All this can save time and money because it is consider efficiency enough and always is cheaper. As new Internet communication services arise such as those instant messaging, chat rooms, online games, auctions (eBay), and my groups, they become instantly popular.

Information searching is the second basic Internet function. Many use the Internet to search and download some of the free, useful computer software that provided by the developers on computers worldwide. The only major problem would be finding what you need among the storehouses of data found in databases and libraries. It is therefore necessary to explain the two major methods of accessing computers and locating files without the information retrieval function would not be possible. There are also educational resources on the Internet. They are in various forms such as journals and databases on different types of knowledge. For example, people can access online journals, or learning languages. There are also special homepages on special topics or subjects of interest. These sites are very helpful to those who are doing academic research or even teachers. This will go a long way to improve their knowledge to make them more competitive and knowledgeable. There are now even virtual libraries and full degree programs, all available online. j

In fact, it is undeniable a trend of commerce on the Internet. The communication facilities have now rapidly become integrated as core business tools such as Internet market, banking, advertisement and so on. Thus most of the business functions are communicative in nature. Users or consumer need not to waste their time on queue up waiting their transaction and service. Internet makes communication with customers and other business partner even to some respondent if related to some online survey.

To conclude, using the Internet in the right way, give lots of benefits.

Internet Application

Network applications are among the most important parts in computer network – if we couldn’t get any useful applications, there would be no use designing networking protocols to support them. Over half a century ago, a variety of intelligent network applications were created. These applications included the classic text-based applications that become popular in the 1970s and later developed into e-mail, remote access to computers, file transfers, newsgroup and text chat in 1980s. As time went by they introduced more killer applications like the World Wide Web, encompassing Web surfing, search and electronic commerce in middle 1990s. Applications like instant messaging with buddy list and P2P file sharing were introduced at the end of millennium.

Nowadays, instead of the already applications was updated, they also include successful audio and video applications including Internet telephony, video sharing and streaming, social networking applications, Internet radio and IP television (IPTV). In addition, the increased penetration of residential broadband access and ubiquity increased access wireless applications set the stage for an exciting future. At the core of the network applications development writing programs that take place on different end systems communicated with each other through the network.

For example, the Web application, there are two different programs that communicate with each other: the browser program running on the user’s host desktop, laptop. PDA, cell phone and so on; and the Web server program running in the Web server host. As another example, in a P2P file sharing systems have a program in each host community to participate in file sharing. In this case, the programs on the various hosts may be similar or identical. This basic design – namely, confining application software to the end.

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 2 is about packet switching vs. circuit switching. It begins with an introduction to packet switching. Then it delves into the history of packet switching, the advantages of packet switching, the cons and pros of circuit switching and ends with a comparison of the two data transfer methods.

Chapter 3 discusses about the Internet edge. It begins with an introduction explaining the meaning of Internet edge. It proceeds to explain the benefits of having intelligence at the edge. A brief explanation of shared access follows and finally it discusses last mile evolution and its problems.

Chapter 4 begins with an introduction of the Internet core. Following the introduction is a discussion of the advantages of the dummy core. It then explains packet-switched router, virtual circuit router (ATM), and latest router technologies. It concludes with the benefits of Internet networking.

Chapter 5 discusses about client-server. It begins with an introduction of client-server. A discussion about client and server program follows. The chapter then continues with an explanation of both client/server evolution and server farm. It ends with some examples of client-server.

Chapter 6 explains about Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing ways for users in the Internet.P2P allows a group of computer users within the same networking program to access files directly from one another's hard drive. It discuss about the architecture and categories of P2P which is Pure P2P, Hybrid P2P and Centralized P2P. It then will show how it works by applying P2P technique in daily life several aspects. It ends with the discussion of the advantages and the disadvantages.

Chapter 7 is about the cloud computing. In cloud computing environment, you can store your files on the internet in both private and public networks. This chapter includes the techniques and the types of cloud computing which including Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, and Community Cloud. We will see the evolution of cloud computing through the architectures and technology. It follows with the applications of files storing in different sectors and the pros and cons of cloud computing.

Chapter 8 will discuss about the revolution of computing and communications, and its development depends on dynamic technical innovation of Internet-of-Things (IoT). IoT allows us to connect things, sensors, actuators, and other smart technologies, thus enabling person-to-object and object-to-object communications. It begins with the architecture and explain about what is IPv6 including the topics of Addressing and Routing, Security, Address Auto-Configuration, Administrative Workload, Mobility (Support for Mobile Devices), and Multicast Technologies.