REFERENCE MODELS FOR COMPUTER NETWORKS

Much of this material is taken from some developed by Ron Wyllys.

Two major approaches:

1. The seven-layer OSI/ISO model Open Systems Interconnection,
currently maintained by the International Organization for
Standards.
2. The five-layer TCP/IP model Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol.

OSI/ISO

1. Physical layer controls electrical and mechanical aspects of data

transmission, e.g., voltage levels, cable lengths, and so on.

2. Data-link layer addresses the transmission of data frames (or

packets) over a physical link between network entities, includes
error correction.

3. Network layer establishes paths for data between computers and

determines switching among routes between computers, determines
how to disaggregate messages into individual packets.

4. Transport layer deals with data transfer between end systems and
determines flow control.

5. Session layer creates and manages sessions when one application

process requests access to another applications process, e.g.,
MSWord importing a spread sheet from Excel.

6. Presentation layer determines syntactic representation of data, e.g.,

agreement on character code like ASCII/Unicode.

7. Application layer establishes interface between a user and a host

computer, e.g., searching in a database application.

TCP/IP
1. Physical layer not really part of this model, since TCP and IP deal
with software; usually thought to refer to all hardware beneath the
network layer.
2. Network or data link layer defined by whatever the Internet
Protocol will run over, e.g., a token-ring network.
3. Internet or network layer provides network addressing and
routing, providing a common address space and connecting
heterogeneous networks. IP runs here.

4. Transport layer manages data-consistency by providing a reliable

[two meanings!!] byte stream between nodes on a network. TCP and
User Datagram Protocol (UDP) run here.
5. Process and applications layer provides application services to
users and programs.