SIZ Approved Course | Peer to Peer Network | Lecture 02 | Materials and Tools || 20 % payout to @siz-official

To function as a network technician also known as network support specialists you have a wide variety of tools and materials needed to setup networks and to troubleshoot network related issues.

S/N	Physical Tools	Software Tools
1	Crimpers	Wireshark
2	Cable Tester	Nmap
3	Punch-down Tool	Paessler PRTG
4	Snips	SolarWinds Engineer’s Toolset
5	Carry Case

The Tools

For this post, we shall be paying attention to the tools needed when setting up a Peer-to-Peer network. To setup this network, you will need a Crimper and a Cable tester, a punch down tool.

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Crimper

A crimper or crimping tool is used to attach an RJ-45 Connector to the ends of a UTP cable in a process called crimping.
This model of crimper is capable of crimping a Registered jack with 4,6 and 8 connectors. It has blades to cut, score and strip cables.

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Cable Tester

After attaching your RJ-45 Connectors to both sides of your UTP cable, you need to test it confirming it is properly connected and correctly configured. The model I will be using here can test RJ-11 & RJ-45. This tester consists of a main unit and a remote unit. The s mode makes the LED blink slower allowing you to confirm continuity. The unit may be detached if the two ends of the tested cable can't be brought together.

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Punch Down tool

Used to work on patch panels or a Keystone jack. The punch down tool has a handle and a tip that has two sides, one side of the tool is a punch down with a cutting blade which pushes the wire down and cuts off the excess.
while the other side will not cut out the excess wires after pushing it in, often used for loops.
The punch down tool comes in two types. The kron and 110 versions. 110 Connectors are straight a standard for the US. Kron Connectors are slanting a standard for the UK. A hybrid will have a straight with an angle cut out to accommodate both 110 and krons.

The Materials

In the aspect of materials to be used in setting up the peer to peer network, we shall be using a category five UTP cable, RJ-45 Connectors, Computers, a switch or router, NIC Cards, and Trunk pipes.

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UTP Cable

The Unshielded Twisted Pair cable is one of the often used material to serve as a physical data transmission medium for networks in morden times. A UTP cable is made up of 8 strands of wires arranged in 4 pairs, the cable colours are Orange-White, Orange, Green-White, Green, Blue-White, Blue, Brown-White, Brown. The 2 wires in each pair is twisted around each other, the main colour and it's white. This cable is rated as category 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5E, 6 and 6A.
Cat 1 & 2 is for voice communications supports a frequency of 75khz while Cat6A at the other end supports 1000Mbps@500 MHz.
Other materials that could serve as the data transmission medium are Coaxial cable, fibre optic cables,
Under wireless we have: iradio waves, micro waves and infrared.

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RJ-45 Connectors

RJ45 stands for Registered Jack-45. It was originally associated with telephone network. The telephone still uses a similar Connector with 4 or 6 connectors but the RJ-45 has eight connectors. It is used as an interface between the computer and the UTP cable that acts as transmission medium. To attach an RJ-45 connector to a UTP cable, you will need a crimper.

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A Switch

hubs were used in the past to create connection between systems on the network, but they could not effectively control traffic in the network which resulted in jams. Or technical called collusion a Switches were used to replace the hubs because they were built with a collision detection system. While a hub would broadcast it's signal a switch uses more intelligent means to send packets to its destination.

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NIC Cards

This are hardware that functions as interface in a Network. Some NIC Cards have ports for RJ-45 Connectors while others can transceive data using radio waves. They are called Wireless network interface cards. The wireless card when fixed in to a desktop computers expansion slot enables it to connect to WiFi.

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Trunk pipes

This is not an active component in a peer to peer Network, it's made of PVC and helps protect the layed UTP cable ensuring the Installation is a lot more durable.

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Conclusion

A peer to peer Network is a good example of a decentralized network, like Steemit, it has no central control. Each computer on this network has autonomy. The tools and material in this post shall be used in our next post to configure a straight through, crossover cable and a Rollover cable.