Networking:  A computer network is a group of interconnected computers. The hows and ways to connected them can be bafflling and hard to understand.  If it is setup correctly, there is no reason to understand. What you need is someone that does understand so they can fix it easily and keep it running.  The basic idea of a network is to connect computers so they can share resourses and / or data.  A simple application  would be the home network that shares a connection to the internet.  If you have more than one computer, you certainly would not want to pay the big companies that sell you internet access for a separate connection for each computer. Or to unplug one so someone else can plug his or hers in.  This is where a router comes in. It is basically a “traffic cop”  that allows multiple computers to share that one connection. Many people share this connection with a wireless router.  But is the same concept.  The same process that allows this can be used to share a printer connected to one of the computers, or to copy family photo’s from one computer to another so the chance of a crash whipping out those cherished irreplaceable moments is less likely.  Companies use the same basic ideas here, but in a bigger way.  Also in companies you introduce the “File Server” or “Server Computer”.  All this is, is a bigger faster computer that also acts like a “traffic cop”, but this time with your data.  If you are a sales oriented company, you would quite often have the same customer information, but with different needs for different people in the company.  The sales rep would want to know how to contact the customer to try and sell them something. The shipping department would like to know where to ship the purchased item(s).  The bookkeeper would like to know where to send the invoice. So the network allows for this data to be updated from multiple sources, without reproducing the entry of already existing data.  This is where your server comes into play. There are shared folders that hold this data so everyone can access it, but it controls access so that one person does not overwrite another’s entry.

I’ve been involved with networking before Microsoft.   In the early days there were no standards and a lot of what was described above was still being worked out.   One of the first major companies that became very big and powerful was Novell.  I worked extensively with it and it evolved to a very fast and stable operating system.  Microsoft entered into the mix and after a few false starts, slowly started to dominate the market. So I’ve got experience with Novell, Microsoft NT, Microsoft 2000, Microsoft 2003, Microsoft peer to peer, and then the open source – Samba.  Open source means that it is available to the public for free or for a donation. It meets some people’s needs, but not all.  A number of large software companies write their software in a propriety manner so that is does not function well unless it is run on a Microsoft Server.   So the decisions regarding networking are many and can be expensive if you make the wrong one.  Having a varied background allows me to analyze the problem and make recommendations based on experience, not because it’s “the only thing I know”.