I like to think of the transport layer as the layer of the OSI Model that enables more interesting traffic. While we network engineers may love a lot of the simpler uses of the IP protocol and ...

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 ...

The OSI model defines protocols for how a network technically handles communications at the various functional layers. Starting with electrons and photons at the physical layer (Layer 1), the model ...

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.

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 ...

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 ...

We recently advised that people in the business of planning, building and supporting computer networks should not lose sight of the mythical OSI Layer 8. We define Layer 8 as the human-to-human ...