Chapter 2 Networking Standards

Networking Standards and the OSI Model

Networking standards are established norms or requirements that are formally documented by professional organizations. It’s like having a standard/national language that everyone speaks, but let’s not go there. ISO International Organization for Standardization which goal is to establish international technological standards to facilitate global exchange of information and barrier free trade. ISO has more than 17,000 industrial standards and of these fewer than 3000 of them apply to the computer related products and functions.

The OSI (Open System Interconnection) Model was developed by ISO in the early 1980s. It is a theoretical model the divides network communications into Seven Layers to assist in understanding during the development process of network computer-to-computer communications.

Application (Top - Seventh Layer) - Facilitates communication (security, formatting, procedural, synchronization…) between software applications and lower-layer network services.

Presentation (Sixth Layer) - Formats data understandable to different applications and hosts.

Session (Fifth Layer ) – Builds, maintains and tears down the communication between network nodes.

Transport (Fourth Layer) –Manages reliable end-to-end delivery of data between network nodes.

Network (Third Layer) – Translates network addresses into their physical counterparts and decides how to deliver them between network nodes.

Data Link(Second Layer) -Divides data received into distinct frames for transmission in Physical layer. It is divided into two sub layers the LLC (Logical Link Control) which communicates with network layer and the MAC (Media Access Control) which manages access to the physical layer.

Physical (Bottom- First Layer) – Accepts frames from the data link layers and generates signals as changes in voltage at the NIC(Network Interface Card). Wireless the signals are sent via antennas as electromagnetic waves.

The following are other significant organizations helping ensure interoperability within the global computer technology industry.

ANSI (American National Standards Institute) http://www.ansi.org/
EIA (Electronic Industries Alliance) http://www.eia.org/
TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association) http://www.tai.org/
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) http://www.ieee.org/
ITU (International Telecommunication Union) http://www.itu.int/
ISOC (Internet Society)http://www.isoc.org/
IAB (Internet Architecture Board) http://www.iab.org/
IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) http://www.ietf.org/
IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) http://www.iana.org/
ARIN (American Registry for Internet) https://www.arin.net/
APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information http://www.apnic.net/
RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens) http://www.ripe.org/
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) http://www.icann.org/