Advantages of networking

Here are some of the benifits of setting up a network

• Sharing Files : Networks let you share information with other computers on the network. Depending on how you set your network, you an do this in one of two ways. The most direct way is to send a file directly from your computer to your friend's computer. The second way is to send your file to an intermediate resting place, where your friend can pick it up later, kind of like dropping a bag full of ransom money at a phone booth. A third way is to permanently store the file at that intermediate place, where both of you can get at the file whenever you want. One way or the other, the data travels to your friend's computer over the network cable.
• Sharing Resources : This means that you can set up certain computer resources - like a disk drive or a printer - so that all of the computers on the network can access the. For example, the laser printer attached to server computer is a shared resource. That means that anyone on the network can use it. Without the network, the other computer members will have to buy their own laser printers.
• Disk drives can be shared resources too. In fact, a disk drive must be set up as a shared resource in order to share files with other users. Suppose in a Network a Computer number 3 wants to share a file with the computer number-4, and a shared disk drive has been set up at computer number 2. All computer number 3 has to do is to copy its file to the shared drive on number 2 computer and tell the number 4 computer where the file is put. Then when the number 4 comes around, he can copy the file from number 2 to its own computer.
• You can share other resources too, such as  CD-ROM devices (those new dangled devices that store gigabytes of data and are more useful to large clip-art libraries and encyclopedia) or modems (which let you access other computers that aren't on your network).
• A network allows users to share resources with others on the network. This can be hardware related like a printer or a modem, or it can be software related like programs and databases, or work processors. System administrators in a server based network can configure or install new software on network computers remotely.
• Sharing Programs. Sometimes its best to put programs that everybody uses on a shared disk on a computer, rather than keep separate copies of the programs on each person's computer. For example if you have 10 computer users who all uses Microsoft Word, you could either store Ten copies of a Microsoft Word on each computer or you can store a single copy on a central server computer in a network which each user can access. This also allows to just invest on one computer, the server, more than on other computers, resulting in overall lowering of cost of a network.
• Backups. As all data is stored on a server , backing up critical data is a simple process.
• Communication. The biggest benefit however, comes in the form of better communication-electronic mail and groupware applications. Through electronic mail or e-mail, members of a network can send messages and ensure safe delivery of data to other members, even when they are not there. Groupware applications allow users to work collectively on same document.

Above were some of the advantages of a network. This is by no means a comprehensive or a complete list, but just enough to give you an idea, on how useful it is to set up a computer network.

• Network Basics
• Disadvantages of a network.