Topic 2

Protocol Architecture

1
Protocol

To perform a task, the involved parties usually follow a
common protocol designed for this task
 The protocol is just a set of rules or conventions
 Different tasks use different protocols


Some key features of a protocol
 Syntax

Concerns the format of the data blocks
 Semantics

Includes control information for coordination and error handling
 Timing

Includes speed matching and sequencing

2
Need For Protocol Architecture

There are lots of network applications

Building each application from scratch is very time-
consuming and challenging
 What commands should be supported?
 How to respond to each command?
 How to identify the two peer applications?

Each computer may run multiple applications!
 How to identify the two computers?
 How to convert the data into bit stream?
 How to convert the bit stream into signals?
 How to detect and handle data loss and data error?

The network is not perfect!
 Etc. 3

A complex task is broken into subtasks: modular design
 Each subtask is implemented separately as a layer, arranged in a
vertical stack

Each layer performs a related subset of the functions
required to communicate with another system.
 It relies on the next lower layer to perform more primitive functions
and to conceal the details of those functions.
 It provides services to the next higher layer.
 Layers should be defined so that changes in one layer do not
require changes in other layers.

So, instead of using a single complex protocol, it’s more
flexible to implement a stack of protocols!
 Reduce the design and development workload significantly!
4
Protocol Architecture

Tasks of communications are broken up into modules
 Each module (or layer) can have its own protocol

In very general terms, communications can be said to
involve three components: applications, computers, and
networks.

For example, file transfer could use three modules (or
layers)
 File transfer application
 Communications service module
 Network access module

The stack of protocols is called “Protocol Stack”
 Or Protocol Architecture

5
TCP/IP Protocol Architecture

Developed by the US Defense Advanced Research Project
Agency (DARPA) for its packet switched network (ARPANET)

Used by the global Internet

It consists of a large collection of protocols that have been issued
as Internet standard by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).
 Check http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2026.txt

The TCP/IP protocol architecture organizes the communication
task into five relatively independent layers:
 Layer 5: Application layer
 Layer 4: Transport layer, or Host to host (TCP belongs to this layer)
 Layer 3: Internet layer, or Network layer (IP belongs to this layer)
 Layer 2: Network access layer, or Link layer
 Layer 1: Physical layer

Remark: Each layer can have lots of different protocols!

6
Benefit of layering

The most challenging problem: how to provide a reliable
data transfer service on top of an unreliable data
network?
 This problem is so important that today’s Operating
Systems all provide such reliable service.

The burden of network application developers has been
reduced significantly!
 Hence the application developers can simply focus
on the application layer issues.
 We can easily develop thousands of network
applications.