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Print Formattednetworking > protocols > tcp/ip

TCP/IP

The TCP/IP protocols do not match the OSI model exactly and reflect the practicalities of designing a system that will work on a given hardware system. A simpler model is more useful for the description of TCP/IP.

Layer 4 Layer 3

Host-to-Host Transport Layer

Ensures integrity of complete data, exchanges through error correction algorithms.

Layer 2

Internet Layer

Defines the datagram and manages the data routing.

Layer 1

Network Access Layer

Handles the preparation of the datagrams for interchange with hardware.

TCP/IP is the more commonly recognised version, Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (hence the forward slash in the abbreviation). However as an alternative to TCP there is also UDP, User Datagram Protocol. TCP is a connection-oriented protocol and provides error management algorithms whilst UDP is a connectionless protocol does not. In this case a "connection" is thought of a "virtual circuit" where two systems can communicate for a period of time. TCP is excellent for longer files where the integrity of the file is paramount, but has higher bandwidth overheads to manage the error correction algorithms. UDP is ideal where the messages are shorter and traffic can be minimised as it is sometimes quicker to re-send the whole message, than to correct parts of a corrupted message. For example, requesting address information from a DNS is a very short burst of information, compared to a long file download that may span megabytes. In networks where errors are low, UDP can be very efficient.

TCPIP.gif

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