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Topic outline

 

  • Time: 30 hours
    Level: Masters

 
 

Introduction

  • Introduction Resource
  • People have always communicated with each other – initially by face-to-face communication through gestures and sounds, then over a distance through written messages and signals in the form of fires, lights...
 

Abbreviations used within this unit

 

1 Protocols in multi-service networks: introduction

 

2 OSI reference model

  • 2.1 Layers of communication Resource
  • An internetwork is a network of networks, composed of terminals, switches and communication media. The overall objective of an internetwork is to allow communication between two (or more) networks. This...
  • 2.2 Vertical communication Resource
  • Figure 6 shows the OSI view of adjacent layers. The interface between two layers in the same system is called a service access point (SAP). One of the features of a service access point is that it has...
  • 2.3 Horizontal communication Resource
  • In the OSI reference model there is a clear separation of services and protocols, but this separation is not always evident in practical applications, so it is worthwhile spending some more time on the...
  • 2.4 Examples of layer functions Resource
  • There are several functions that can be performed at one or more of the OSI layers. Some of the more common ones are discussed below.
 

3 TCP/IP protocol architecture

  • 3.1 What does TCP/IP protocol architecture do? Resource
  • The Internet is a worldwide public internetwork, which allows computers to communicate with each other even though they may have different manufacturers and different operating systems. The origins of...
  • 3.2 Domain name system Resource
  • Applications use easy-to-remember names for hosts on the Internet, but before sending any data to a host an application in the source host must translate its name for the destination host to the numerical...
  • 3.3 Hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) Resource
  • In this section, I shall look at one example of an application of the TCP/IP protocol suite – sending hypertext pages over the world wide web (WWW or simply the web). However, first I shall very briefly...
  • 3.4 Transmission control protocol (TCP) Resource
  • As I outlined in the previous section, peer entities in clients and servers exchange HTTP protocol data units when they wish to transfer a resource over the web. I gave very little detail about this because...
  • 3.5 Internet protocol (IP) Resource
  • At the time of writing (2002), two versions of IP are available: versions 4 and 6. In this section I shall describe version 4, which is abbreviated to IPv4, as it is the more widely available version....
 

4 ATM protocol architecture

  • 4.1 What is ATM protocol architecture? Resource
  • The asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) protocol architecture is designed to support the transfer of data with a range of guarantees for quality of service. The user data is divided into small, fixed-length...
  • 4.2 ATM layers Resource
  • In this section I shall briefly review some of the main functions of the ATM layers but I shall not go into too much detail because at this stage we are interested in only the general points about protocols....
  • 4.3 IP over ATM Resource
  • You have seen that the IP protocol supports a connectionless service, and the ATM and TCP protocols support a connection-oriented service.
 

5 Summary

  • 5 Summary Resource
  • Now that you have completed this unit it is a good idea to reflect on what you have learned, and a good way of reflecting on your learning is to write a summary of the material. A brief summary is provided...
 

References and Acknowledgements

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