The Open System Interconnect (OSI) network model, referred to by many as simply a stack, is in fact a well-designed, layered architecture for efficient intersystem and intrasystem communications. In ...

First, and foremost, the OSI stack is just a theoretical reference model. There is no actual OSI software. It has been around since about 1980, and it is based upon recommendations from the ITU-T and ...

Getting a handle on the invisible part of your network—the protocols that are in use—can be of enormous value in helping you detect problems. So far, we've talked about the tangibles of your ...

Other tips in this series have examined the seven-layer OSI model from the perspective of security. Although security was not the No. 1 goal of the designers of the OSI model, the idea behind these ...

Engineer's perspective: TCP is at Layer 4, IP is at Layer 3, VLAN is at Layer 2—layered thinking is the first step in ...

From the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model shown above, answer the following items: 1. Which layer encapsulates the segment into packets? 2. Which layer of the OSI model supplies services that ...

Thanks for your comments on my first EtherGeek post on understanding the OSI Model. I especially enjoyed learning new ways to remember the OSI Model; for example: Please Do Not Throw Stale Pizza Away.

The third layer of the OSI Model, the network layer, is where most network engineers focus their time and expertise. As Darragh commented in my post on the data link layer, Layer 2 is cool but Layer 3 ...

Peeling back the layers of IoT devices reveals most of them are nothing more than what are already on the Internet in the form of present-day M2M devices. In just six years, according to Cisco Systems ...

Layer 2 of the OSI model is where we find the Data Link Layer, which provides the mechanism by which data is transferred from node to node across a network. What makes this layer important is that it ...