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Chapter 2 Literature Review Introduction Laudon And Laudon (2002, P. 13) ...




Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Laudon and Laudon (2002, p. 13) describes a network as the linking of two or more computers to share data or resources and by definition a tool is ‘a means for achieving any purpose' (Webster's Dictionary 2000, p.487) and therefore in that sense each component of a computer network can be considered a tool; however this research will focus on those elements essential to its efficiency.
Network tools can be divided into two main types: hardware and software. However in today's society it used almost solely to refer to network software and the tools that help support and synergise these networks. The hardware aspect or tangible aspect of the network consists of processors, and network cables.
The intangible aspect refers to the software programs and operating systems: The vast majority of LANs are PC networks and the greater part of these use Novell Netware NOS. (Cleary 1998, p.59-100) Unix and Windows NT networks are also popular.
This literature review will focus on main areas:
Functionality;
The role of Administrator; and
Legislature
Functionality
Benefits
Computer networks provide many benefits the first of which is equipment economies; Tanenbaum (2002, p.3) gave the example of an office with many employees sighting that it would not be necessary for each of them to have a printer but rather that: a high-volume networked printer is often cheaper, faster and easier to maintain than a large collection of individual printers.Therefore if an organisation has a small office staff of 10 employees and the average cost of an all in one networkable printer/ scanner/ copier, costs £89 then the company would have already saved £801 just by networking one printer alone and around £6372 over an eighteen month period. [BBC Report 2007 (Online)]
Heightened personnel performance is yet another benefit of computer networking. This occurs because it allows for workers to interact and support each other more efficiently via data and file sharing therefore it creates what are known as workgroups. The importance of this benefit can be expressed with reference to the Nottingham City Hospital, which implemented a 3,500-node local-area network by HP which increased its bandwidth eightfold in a recent news release the HP company explained that: The ability to view this data on screen helps groups at the hospital to process their workloads more quickly and thus reduce patient waiting times in accordance with government targets. [HP 2006 (Online)] On the whole database management is in itself another benefit of networking.

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