Definition - What
does Local Area Network (LAN) mean?
A local area network (LAN) is a computer network within a small
geographical area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, office building
or group of buildings.
A LAN is composed of inter-connected workstations and personal computers
which are each capable of accessing and sharing data and devices, such as
printers, scanners and data storage devices, anywhere on the LAN. LANs are
characterized by higher communication and data transfer rates and the lack of
any need for leased communication lines.
In the 1960s, large colleges and universities had the first local area
networks (LAN). In the mid-1970s, Ethernet was developed by Xerox PARC (Xerox
Palo Alto Research Center) and deployed in 1976. Chase Manhattan Bank in New
York had the first commercial use of a LAN in December 1977. In the late 1970s
and early 1980s, it was common to have tens or hundreds of individual computers
located in the same site. Many users and administrators were attracted to the
concept of multiple computers sharing expensive disk space and laser printers.
From the mid 1980s to through the 1990s, Novell's Netware dominated the
LAN software market. Over time, competitors such as Microsoft came out with
comparable products to the point where nowadays, local networking is considered
base functionality for any operating system.
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