ARPANET Objectives

♦ The network would continue to function even if one or many of the computers or connections in the network failed.
♦ The network had to be useable by vastly different hardware and software platforms.
♦ The network had to be able to automatically reroute traffic around non-functioning parts of the network.
♦ The network had to be a network of networks, rather than a network of computers (Hoffman, 1995)
It rapidly became evident that people wanted to share information between networks, and as a result, commercial networks were developed to meet consumer demand. The Internet became the umbrella name for this combination of networks in the late 1980’s .Today’s Internet is somewhat difficult to describe. Essentially, the Internet is a network of computers that offers access to information and people.