N-GEN Communications Web-based Seminars ©NGCS

Seminar - An Overview of Communications Technologies

Module 6 - Internet, Intranet, Extranet, e-Commerce and Web Services                                      Slide 22 of 70 _________________                                                                                  __________

                                                TCP / IP Protocols

                                            A Suite of Protocols

                                            TCP

                                            IP

                                            User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

_________________                                                                                  __________

TCP/IP is not a single protocol but a suite of protocols. A group of protocols provide an effective means of communication between networked computers and other devices. IPX and AppleTalk are the best known networking protocols of the 1980s and early 90s.

TCP - The Transmission Control Protocol is responsible for negotiating the exact specifics of the session between two computers. It also determines how much data can be sent at a given time and has the capability to acknowledge that data has been properly received. TCP is a very reliable protocol as it can detect lost or corrupt packets and request retransmission. TCP is best utilized where it is essential to receive all the packets as intended.

IP - The Internet Protocol is responsible for individually addressing each of the data packets. It does not guarantee the packets' contents.

UDP - The User Datagram Protocol is a faster protocol than TCP but less reliable. It is used in situations where the loss of one or two packets is not very important - such as voice or video transmission.

Together, these three protocols meet the needs of an open network architecture environment in the Internet network.