A relay network sends information between devices too far apart to communicate directly. Nodes transmit the information to its destination, and the network can use different topologies. It has advantages such as long-distance communication and efficient data transmission.
A relay network is a type of computer network used to send information between two devices, such as a server and a computer, that are too far apart to send information directly to each other. Therefore the network has to send or “broadcast” the information to different devices, called nodes, which transmit the information to its destination. A well-known example of a relay network is the Internet. A user can view a web page from a server halfway around the world by sending and receiving information through a series of connected nodes.
In many ways, a relay network resembles a chain of people staying together. One person has a note that he must pass to the girl at the end of the line. He is the sender, she is the recipient and the people in between are the messengers or nodes. Pass the message to the first node, or person, who passes it to the second and so on until it reaches the girl and she reads it.
People might stand in a circle, however, instead of a line. Each person is close enough to reach the person on either side of and in front of them. Together, people represent a network and different messages can now pass around or through the network in different directions at the same time, as opposed to the straight line which could only carry messages in one specific direction. This concept, the way a network is structured and how it shares data, is known as a network topology. Relay networks can use many different topologies, from a line to a ring to a tree shape, to transmit information as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Often the relay network is complex and branches in multiple directions to connect many servers and computers. Where two lines from two different computers or servers meet, they form the nodes of the forwarding network. For example, two lines of computers could enter the same router, making it the node.
Wireless networks also use network forwarding. A laptop, for example, might connect to a wireless network that sends and receives information through one network and another until it reaches its destination. Even if not all parts of the network have physical cables, they still connect to other devices that function as nodes.
This type of network has several advantages. Information can travel long distances, even if the sender and receiver are far apart. It also speeds up data transmission by choosing the best path to travel between the nodes and the recipient’s computer. If one node is too busy, information is simply routed to another. Without relay networks, sending an email from one computer to another would require the two computers to be connected directly together before it could work.
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