Black Business Man On The Phone And Computer Cartoon

In networking jargon, a computer, phone, or

internet of things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

device connected to a

computer network A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...

is sometimes referred to as an end system or end station, because it sits at the edge of the network. The

end user In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ultimately use a product. The end user stands in contrast to users who support or maintain the product, such as sysops, system administrato ...

directly interacts with an end system that provides information or services. End systems that are connected to the Internet are also referred to as internet hosts; this is because they host (run) internet applications such as a

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

or an email retrieval program. The Internet's end systems include some computers with which the end user does not directly interact. These include mail servers,

web server A web server is computer software and underlying Computer hardware, hardware that accepts requests via Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, co ...

s, or database servers. With the emergence of the

, household items (such as toasters and refrigerators) as well as portable, handheld

computers A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ('' computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as ''programs'', ...

and digital cameras are all being connected to the internet as end systems. End systems are generally connected to each other using switching devices known as routers rather than using a single communication link. The path that transmitted information takes from the sending end system, through a series of communications links and routers, to the receiving end system is known as a route or path through the network. The sending and receiving route can be different, and can be reallocated during transmission due to changes in the

network topology Network topology is the arrangement of the elements (Data link, links, Node (networking), nodes, etc.) of a communication network. Network topology can be used to define or describe the arrangement of various types of telecommunication networks, ...

. Normally the cheapest or fastest route is chosen. For the end user the actual routing should be completely transparent.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:End System Computing terminology Internet architecture

See also

References