Centralised Network
A centralised structure means that all communication is done through one node (Computer,City) If this node was attacked or was down it would not be able to communicate with the other nodes to launch a counter attack or communicate with the other computers In 1962 when an American aircraft discovered middle and long rang missile in Cuba which were able to reach the US, information systems had a centralized network structure. In order to avoid a break down in the event of an attack a decentralized architecture network had to be developed in order to still function in the event of a node loss. De-centralised Network The internet today is a global network of computers operating in a de-centralised dynamic structure. This type of structure means that in an event of a break down or an attack on the main node, the other nodes are still able to communicate with each other. Paul Baran (April 29, 1926 – March 26, 2011) was a Polish-American engineer who was a pioneer in the development of computer networks. He was one of the two independent inventors of packet switched computer networking and went on to start several companies and develop other technologies that are an essential part of the Internet and other modern digital communication.
Baran began writing a series of technical papers about his ideas and developed his thoughts on creating and designing a more robust communications networks. He had discussions with Warren McCulloch, a well-known psychiatrist at MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics about the brain and how it can sometimes recover lost functions by bypassing a dysfunctional region. The brain does not rely on a single set of dedicated cells for a given function. Baran thought that maybe a communication network could be built in a similar way and eventually designed the distributed network. |
|