Workgroup-Based Network, Essay Example

Workgroups

Workgroups are defined as a common platform that is suitable for small computer networks. Moreover, they are also called a peer to peer network which represents small collection of workstations, as workgroup is recommended for a small computer network including 10 to 20 workstations (Burnett, 2002). Network administrators assign workstations and printers that are relating to a similar function or department under each workgroup type. For instance, employees working in a finance department will be allocated in a workgroup called as ‘Finance’. Likewise, workgroup provides a channel for communicating with each other along with sharing network resources. However, there is no centralized administration for example, active directory, where network administrators assign roles and policies on a domain controller rather than on each workstation (Workgroup-based network.2011). Network administrators have to configure workgroups on each workstation in order to set the criteria of accessing files, printers or network services with each other. In order to prevent unauthorized access, network drives that are shared across the network can be assigned under separate workgroups. For instance, finance department has already a defined workgroup named as ‘Finance’. Similarly, operational staff will also be allocated a new workgroup named as ‘operational’. In this way, none of them will be able to access or share resources and unauthorized access will be prevented. However, workgroups do not support security other than organizing network resources, and unauthorized access cannot be prevented by organizing workstations and network resources in to separate workgroups. Therefore, in order to provide adequate security and to configure access management, there is a requirement of creating a domain and then set policies and roles on each user.

References

Workgroup-based network.(2011). Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, , 1.

Burnett, M. T. (2002). Maximum windows 2000 security . Indianapolis, IN: Sams Pub.