Networking Standards

Networking Standards

Before servers can provide services to clients, communications between the two entities must be enabled. Besides the cables that you see, numerous processes operate behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly. For these processes to interoperate smoothly in a diverse networking environment, the computing community has settled on several standards and specifications that define the interaction and interrelation of the various components of network architecture. This chapter explores some of those standards, including the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model, Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP), Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), the IEEE 802 standards, Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS), and Open Data-Link Interface (ODI).

Chapter 2 targets the following objectives in the Standards and Terminology section of the Networking Essentials exam:

Define the communication devices that communicate at each level of the OSI model
Compare the implications of using connection-oriented communications with connectionless communications
Distinguish whether SLIP or PPP is used as the communications protocol for various situations
Describe the characteristics and purpose of the media used in IEEE 802.3 and IEEE 802.5
Explain the purpose of the NDIS and Novell ODI network standards

Further Information