Web Technology

Powerline ethernet adapters are not a brand new technology, but they’ve come into prominence with the need for high speed home networking because of gaming systems, cable and dish TV, and voice over IP applications which require fast network connections. Remember though, powerline ethernet adapters speed up your LAN, that is your local area network that comprises of your home. They do not speed up the WAN, that is your access to the Internet and the Wide Area network. If you have a slow DSL connection, or even worse, a dial-up modem, powerline ethernet will allow your home network to be fast, but will do nothing for your connections to the outside world.

Powerline ethernet aims to be plug and play. Ideally, you would simply plug in your first adapter into the outlet, and your second adapter into the second outlet, and connect your network cable to each of these adapters, and you would be ready to go. Fortunately, this does happen some of the time, but there can be problems with interference, different electrical circuits in the home, or some configuration issues if you set up your adapters for encrypted connections. Remember though, this is a consumer product, and the setup should work, otherwise technical support is available.

The speed you achieve with these adapters would probably be between 15 and 50 mbps. Advertised speeds are between 85 mbps and 200 mbps, though some gigabit powerline ethernet adapters are also being advertised these days. The speed becomes slower as interference or distance becomes an issue. Homeplug 1.0 is the correct standard to use, and though the homeplug alliance claims that manufacturers following its standard will be intercompatible, it would be best to not only choose the same brand, but even the same make and model of powerline adapter to make sure additional adapters are compatible. The reason I say this is that some specifications on products are mentioning incompatibility.

As compared to wireless technology, powerline adapters have some advantages such as better bandwidth, and better connections in large spaces. Wireless-N would be the only comparable technology to powerline connections, and the decision will depend on the specific situation. Some people will have poor wireless connections due to wireless phone interference, walls or other obtacles and will achieve great results with the powerline ethernet. As far as cost, it seems to me that wireless-n and powerline ethernet are about equivalent. If you have a laptop, or a cell phone that can use the local area network, you definitely want a wireless network.

But for two story houses, you can even have a combined approach. You would need a wireless router downstairs which connects to the WAN, and one of its ports would broadcast the ethernet upstairs using the powerline adapter. Your second powerline ethernet adapter would get this signal, and this would connect to a wireless access point. This would broadcast a wireless network in your second floor, and you could connect both physically and wirelessly upstairs (assuming your WAP had both physical ports as well as the wireless capability).

There are a few different types of network servers, and they are all intended to perform a very specific task. The question that many people have pertains to what exactly a server is, and for that reason we are going to talk about the concept, and then we will take a look at a few of the network servers that perform the various tasks within a business.

A server can refer to a piece of software, or it can refer to an entire computer. When you have an entire computer functioning as a server it is referred to as a dedicated server. If you have a computer housing multiple servers, it is a non-dedicated server. In many cases this is referred to as a ‘box’, and no business would be complete without at least one of these.

VoIP

The types of servers out there are quite varied. First of all there is the VoIP server. It stands for Voice over IP, or Voice over Internet Protocol. This is not a server type that you would normally see in a private home, but in business you might see it quite a bit. The size and power of a VoIP server will depend highly on the number of users that need to access it.

Web

Another type of server that you will find common in businesses is the HTTP server. This is a fairly powerful type of server that hosts web pages and in some cases can become a file server. It is not often used as a file server however, because this is the job of the FTP server.

File Hosting

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and is used solely for hosting and the distribution of files. FTP can be used for either small or large files, and is available in two varieties: Client and Server. Both of these can be obtained as free open source, or they can be paid for. Paid versions obviously have more support, but free versions have the advantage of being…well…free.

This is a list of some of the more basic servers in a business. The file server will be the most useful in any business as you are no doubt going to find out. The others will come in handy, and web servers will be useful for advertising. There are a number of other different server types out there that you might be interested in using however, among them being a mail server. The important thing to remember is that you should of course only strive to use the servers that your business truly needs. In other words don’t overreach, and don’t invest in technologies that simply will not be useful to you.

Stick to these guidelines every time you find a new server that may be worth using. Figure out what your exact requirements are and what system would best suit it, then find the quickest way to implement it. You will find that in this modern age of e-commerce, servers are of great use to large and small businesses alike.