Saga

Prelude A long long time ago (I can still remember as Madonna sang) I started to wrote some posts about the network. For those who missed the previous posts, you can read the introduction, the physycal layer and the datalink layer respectively. As a main source I use Computer Networks and TCP/IP Illustrated. In the previous posts I had to go into details about how some parts of the physical layer works but - by going forward through the layers - concepts belonging to separate historical standards - OSI and IP - will intertwine and this entails some troubles from a logical point of view....

A journey through the network - Layer 2 A month ago I started to wrote some posts about the network. For those who missed the previous posts, the introduction and the physycal layer. For the previous post I had to go into details about how some parts of the physical layer work but, by going forward with the layers, concepts belonging to separate historical standards - OSI and IP - will intertwine and this entails some troubles from a logical point of view....

A journey through the network - Layer 1 Before the Christmas holidays, I wrote an article about the network: yes. The network is that part of computer science that is no longer considered fundamental as it should, and I must admit that I learn it every day at my expense: as an old friend always says to me “the network is the concept on which everything is based, describes how the body works: after that, you can also become a gastroenterologist, but you will always need to know how the body works”....

A journey through the network - Introduction During the last year I understood one thing: sooner or later everyone should review network notions, so I decided to start writing articles about network fundamentals. As a main source I would use Computer Networks and TCP/IP Illustrated. In this article, I will talk about two important network architectures: the OSI reference model and the TCP/IP reference model. These two model has opposite characteristics, in particular:...