About The Author
Michelle Patterson is excited with the new technologies that are threatening to change the way we stay in touch and communicate, particular in business. She works with companies that are introducing these technologies to make understanding them easy for regular people.
If you are wondering as to how data transfer takes
place between two computers on a local network or over the internet then you
might need a little knowledge about networking and network layers. System developers
and network administrators are fairly aware of the intricacies involved in
network based communications. However, for laymen like me and you, it might be
nothing short of a technological wonder. Here we are going to learn a few
things about computer communication in a network
TCP/IP
PROTOCOL SUITE
The communication between two computers on a network is
carried out with the help of protocol suits. TCP/IP is the most popular protocol
suite and majority of the networks around the world implement this for network
communication. The protocol suite comprises of a layered architecture and there
is a functionality associated with each layer that needs to be completed by the
protocol. There are multiple protocol options available to each layer to carry
out its designated functions. The typical 4 layer system comprises of the
following:
·
Application
layer – This is the topmost layer of the TCP/IP protocol suite. It consists of
the processes or applications which use
the transport layer protocols for delivering data to the designated computers.
Applications use the popular protocols like FTP (File Transfer Protocol), SMTP
(Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), SNMP
(Simple network Management Protocol) etc.
·
Transport
Layer – This is the layer that facilitates the data transfer between two hosts. UDP and TCP are the two most popular
protocols that are used by this layer – TCP is used for reliable connection and
UDP is used for unreliable connections.
·
Network
Layer – The other name for this layer is Internet Layer and the primary
responsibility of this layer is to handle or organize the data transmission on
a network. Movement here implies the data routing on the network. The network
layer uses the IP protocol along with IGMP and ICMP.
·
Data Link
Layer – This layer is referred to as the network interface layer. It primarily
consists of the device drivers (for the OS) and the network interface card.
Both the layers are concerned with the communications details for data
transmission over the network. Popular
protocols used by this layer comprises of PPP (point-to-point protocol), ARP
(Address Resolution Protocol) etc.
Server,
Ports and Standards
There are specific IP addresses that are assigned
to every device attached to the network. When the port number is combined with
the machine’s IP address, it is called a socket. When the combination of port
number and IP for the client as well as the server is used then it is known as
four tuple. This is used to identify a unique connection and some of the most
popular services like the telnet, FTP etc. run on the port numbers. Port 21 is
allocated to the FTP server and port number 23 is used by telnet. Thus, we get
to see that there are some popular services which use the TCP/IP run on a few
standard ports. The ports generally range between 1 and 1023. All these
standard ports are maintained and managed by the IANA or Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority.
Majority of the standard servers that use TCP/IP
suite run on the standard port numbers but this is not the case with the
clients. The port numbers for the clients are known as ephemeral ports. These are temporary ports as they can connect
to the server, get work done and then is disconnected from the server.
Thus, we get to see that Internet layering is all
about a synchronized system that has a pre-determined architecture and
protocols for delivering data from one computer to another.
Mail me for Guest Posts in dilipstechnoblog.com (dilipgeoffrey@gmail.com)
