Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Communications protocols use various conventions for distinguishing the elements of a packet and for formatting the user data. For example, in Point-to-Point Protocol, the packet is formatted in 8-bit bytes, and special characters are used to delimit elements. Other protocols, like Ethernet, establish the start of the header and data elements ...
Data in the header is used by networking hardware to direct the packet to its destination, where the payload is extracted and used by an operating system, application software, or higher layer protocols. Packet switching is the primary basis for data communications in computer networks worldwide.
For example, it might add a port number to identify the application, a network address to help with routing, a code to identify the type of data in the packet and error-checking information. All this additional information, plus the original service data unit from the higher layer, constitutes the protocol data unit at this layer.
In digital communications networks, packet processing refers to the wide variety of algorithms that are applied to a packet of data or information as it moves through the various network elements of a communications network. With the increased performance of network interfaces, there is a corresponding need for faster packet processing.
The Data Identifier word (along with the SDID, if used), indicates the type of ancillary data that the packet corresponds to. Data identifiers range from 1 to 255 (FF hex), with 0 being reserved. As the serial digital interface is a 10-bit format, the DID word is encoded as follows: Bits 0-7 (bit 0 being the LSB), are the raw DID value.
Examples of data link protocols are Ethernet, the IEEE 802.11 WiFi protocols, ATM and Frame Relay. In the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP), the data link layer functionality is contained within the link layer, the lowest layer of the descriptive model, which is assumed to be independent of physical infrastructure.
An example of the fragmentation of a protocol data unit in a given layer into smaller fragments. IP fragmentation is an Internet Protocol (IP) process that breaks packets into smaller pieces (fragments), so that the resulting pieces can pass through a link with a smaller maximum transmission unit (MTU) than the original packet size.
Connection-oriented transport-layer protocols provide connection-oriented communications over connectionless communication systems. A connection-oriented transport layer protocol, such as TCP, may be based on a connectionless network-layer protocol such as IP, but still achieves in-order delivery of a byte-stream by means of segment sequence numbering on the sender side, packet buffering, and ...