The OSI Model

Based on Computer Networks and

Internets (Comer)

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OSI or ISO
 The layering model is OSI, which stands for
Open System Interconnection.
 The organization that developed the model
is ISO, International Organization for
Standardization.
 ANSI (American National Standards Institute) is
a member of ISO.
 ANSI farms out much of the hardware
standardization to the IEEE.

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ISO
 International Organization for
Standardization, shouldn’t that be
IOS???
 No. ISO is not really an acronym.
 “ISO” was chosen because it means
equal as in an isosceles triangle that
has two equal sides.

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Standards
 “Standards are documented
agreements containing technical
specifications or other precise
criteria to be used consistently as
rules, guidelines, or definitions of
characteristics, to ensure that
materials, products, processes and
services are fit for their purpose.”
 From the ISO website

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www.iso.org

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Open versus Proprietary
 Open: specifications are public.
 Requires committee agreement, can be slow.
 Proprietary: Privately owned and
controlled, specifications are kept private so
that other companies cannot duplicate.
 No outside agreement needed, can be reactive
(faster).
 Consumers prefer open and standardized
systems, as these allow them to use the
products of various manufacturers.
 But sometimes it takes too long to come up with
them.

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Layering/Interfacing
 Layering is an important concept in
computing.
 When a user runs an application,
 The user interfaces with the application.
 The application interfaces with the
operating system.
 The operating system interfaces with the
BIOS.
 The BIOS interfaces with the
input/output hardware.
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To what purpose?
 The user need only know something about
the application and doesn’t need to know
any details about the operating system, the
BIOS or the hardware.
 Similarly the application needs information
about the user and the operating system
but not the BIOS or hardware.
 For layering to be successful there must be
a “standard” interface into a layer.
 The operating system is said to provide an
Application Programming Interface (API).
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More than just a way of
thinking about it
 These layers can be seen in the industry,
there are
 Companies that specialize in hardware
 Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital
 Companies that specialize in BIOS
 AMI, Phoenix
 Companies that specialize in operating systems
 Microsoft, Sun, B
 Companies that specialize in applications
 Oracle, Microsoft, AOL

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Communications Layering
 The communication between two (or
more) users on a network similarly is
broken down into layers.
 A possible model for this layering was
laid out by the ISO.

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What is OSI?
 OSI serves as a "reference model" for how
information is transmitted between any two
points in a network.
 It guides manufacturers (a.k.a. vendors) so
they can make products that will work with
other products.
 The OSI model is comprised of seven layers
that are involved in communicating
between two nodes of a network.

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It’s not the law
 The OSI model was never adopted as
a rigorous set of specifications.
 The lower layers (physical, data link,
network and transport) are for the
most part adhered to.
 Recall however that we have already
mentioned a “brouter” which serves as
both bridge (data link layer) and router
(network layer).

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Classroom not boardroom
 Many vendors agreed at one time or
another to adhere to OSI, however, the
system proved to be too loosely defined,
overly broad and the companies had much
invested in their proprietary standards.
 Some products like X.400 (an e-mail
system used mainly in Europe and Canada,
an alternative to SMTP) adhere to OSI.
 But mainly OSI has become a teaching tool.

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OSI’s Purpose
 Even if manufacturers do not restrict
themselves to a particular OSI layer,
they usually think of and describe
their products in relationship to the
OSI model.
 It provides a language and framework
for discussion of networks, so it
persists and continues to be taught.

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TCP/IP model
 Another model for understanding
communications networks is the TCP/IP
model.
 It also is broken into layers
 It has no equivalent of the OSI model’s physical
layer.
 The next three layers of the OSI model and the
TCP/IP model are roughly equivalent.
 The top three layers of the OSI model are
combined into one layer in the TCP/IP model.

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The main idea
 The communication between computers can
be broken down into layers.
 Each layer is characterized by its functions and
how it interfaces with the adjacent layers.
 Within the source’s computer and starting
at the user level, the communication is
passed down through the layers to the
lowest layer where it is sent through some
transmission medium.

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The main idea (Cont.)
 The communication travels at the
lowest layer (physical), occasionally
rising up to the second layer (bridge)
or third layer (router) until it reaches
the destination.
 The communication now passes up
through the layers.

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The main idea (Cont.)
 The layers are realized by a
combination of the operating system,
applications (for instance a browser),
network protocols such as TCP/IP,
and the software and hardware that
actually place a physical signal onto a
transmission line (NIC, modem, etc)
 Don’t confuse TCP/IP (the stack, model)
with layer protocols TCP (layer 4) and IP
(layer 3).

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OSI: Network / Computer
 The Transport layer can be viewed as the
division between the computer and the
network.
 The lowest three layers (physical, data link
and network) deal with “a best effort” to
get information to the desired computer.
 The Transport layer verifies the effort, and
hides the network from the layers above.
 The remaining layers treat the data as if it
was local.
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Layer 1: Physical
 There is no interpretation at this level, a
stream of 1’s and 0’s are put into a form
convenient for transmission.
 Waves (with little regard for their information
content) are sent and received.
 This level is the most hardware oriented. It
includes specifications about
 NIC card speeds
 Types and lengths of cable
 Voltage characteristics (range, level or edge)
 Etc.

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Physical Layer (Cont.)
 The physical layer involves protocols
for actual transmission
 Ethernet
 FDDI
 RS232
 ATM
 These protocols also involve the
interface with the next higher layer.

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Layer 2: The data-link layer
 At this layer one begins to consider bytes
instead of just bits, one examines some of
the information content of the signal (at
least the address and some of the error
detection sequencing)
 Recall that bridges operate at this level
 They know where a packet is headed.
 They know whether or not it has been involved
in a collision.
 Bit stuffing occurs at this level.

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Data Link (Cont.)

 Data packets are encoded and

decoded into bits.
 It directs packets and handles errors
from the physical layer.
 It handles synchronization (timing).
 It must know where one bit ends and
the next one begins.
 It must know where one byte ends and
the next one begins.
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Data link sublayers
 The data link layer is divided into two
sublayers:
 The MAC (Media Access Control)
sublayer: takes the signal from or puts
the signal onto the transmission line
(“touches” physical layer).
 The LLC (Logical Link Control) sublayer:
starts to interpret the signal as data,
includes timing (synchronization) and
error checking.
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Layer 3: The network layer
 The router acted at this layer.
 One of the main functions of the layer is
routing. Store and forward are network
layer functions.
 In a connection-oriented scheme, the
virtual circuit is established at the network
layer.
 Building the routing tables, troubleshooting
the routing tables when there is a lot of
traffic or if a connection goes down.
 The network layer also gathers related
packets (packet sequencing).
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 Layer 4: The transport layer
 As stated before, Layer 4 is the dividing line
between inter-computer transactions and
intra-computer transactions.
 Layer 4 manages end-to-end verification.
 The lower layers make a “best effort” but if data
is lost so be it. Layer 4 must ensure that the
information was received intact.
 It does a higher-order error-checking.
 The transfer should be “transparent.” The
higher layers do not know the data came
from another computer.
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Whose job is it?
 At a node Layer 3 collects associated
packets if one was dropped it may
throw them all away.
 It is the responsibility of the source’s
Layer 4 to look for some
acknowledgement that all packets
arrived. If no acknowledgment is
received, it should retransmit.

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Layer 5: The session layer
 Recall when discussing connection-oriented
schemes, we mentioned the idea of a
“session.”
 It is an agreement between a source and
destination to communicate.
 This layer establishes, manages and
terminates sessions between applications
(they could be on the same computer or on
different computers).

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Layer 6: The presentation layer
 This layer provides independence from
differences in data representation (e.g.,
encryption) by translating from application
to network format, and vice versa.
 The presentation layer works to transform
data into the form that the application layer
can accept. This layer formats and encrypts
data to be sent across a network, providing
freedom from compatibility problems. It is
sometimes called the “syntax layer.”

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Layer 7: The application layer
 This layer supports application and end-
user processes.
 Communication partners are identified,
quality of service is identified, user
authentication and privacy are considered,
and any constraints on data syntax are
identified.

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Layer 7: The application layer
 Everything at this layer is application-
specific. This layer provides application
services for file transfers, e-mail, and other
network software services. Telnet and FTP
are applications that exist entirely in the
application level.
 These are not applications (like Word and
Excel) but services for such applications!

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 Mnemonic
 Please Do Not Throw Sausage Pizza
Away
 Please  Physical
 Do  Data Link
 Not  Network
 Throw  Transport
 Sausage  Session
 Pizza  Presentation
 Away  Application

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OSI in real life
 For example, TCP/IP is usually packaged with
other Internet programs as a suite of products
that support communication over the Internet.
This suite includes the File Transfer Protocol
(FTP), Telnet, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP), e-mail protocols, and sometimes
others.
 Although TCP fits well into the Transport layer
of OSI and IP into the Network layer, the other
programs fit rather loosely (but not neatly
within a layer) into the Session, Presentation,
and Application layers.
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Layered Software
 In order to communicate on a network,
each computer must have software that
passes packets from layer to layer. Each
layer only communicates with its neighbors.
 The entire package of software for moving
through layers may be called a “suite” or a
“stack.”
 “What stack are you running?”
 The most widely used communication stack
is TCP/IP.

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Fig. 16.3: Stacks and Vendors

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Network Operating System
 A Network Operating System (NOS)
includes special features for connecting
computers/devices to a LAN.
 Some operating systems (OS), like UNIX
and Mac OS, have networking features built
in. But the term “network operating
system” is usually reserved for packages
that add such features to a basic OS.

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Network Operating Systems
 Some popular NOS's for networking
DOS/Windows systems include
 Novell Netware
 Artisoft's LANtastic (dead)
 Microsoft LAN Manager (no future updates)
 Windows NT/W2K
 Networking has become so important, that
basic network connections are handled by the
ordinary operating system.

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Multiple protocol stacks
 One computer may communicate with
different computers using different
protocols across the SAME physical
medium.
 The information that identifies which
protocol is being used are contained
within the frames.

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Recall that the
Ethernet Frame
type field
identifies what
kind of
information is
contained within
and how it should
be handled.
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Nested Headers
 As a source computer passes a message
down through the protocol stack, each
layer adds a header.
 The header added at a particular layer is
intended for the corresponding layer on
the destination computer.
 Thus the message passed down from
Layer X to Layer Y on the source
computer should be the same as the
message passed up from Layer Y to Layer
X on the destination computer.
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Layer-to-Layer
 Because source Layer Y added the header
that destination Layer Y strips off, this is
effectively a Layer-Y-to-Layer-Y
communication (even though it passes
through other lower layers).
 For instance, the source and destination
presentation layers have to negotiate the
format of the data
 Will it be text? Will it be encrypted?
 There is no direct link between presentation
layers, the information passes down through
the physical layer; nevertheless, the two
layers do communicate.
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Nested Headers (Fig. 16-4)

and trailer

Layer 2 also adds a trailer

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No physical layer header
 The physical layer does not add a
header.
 Headers contain information needed
by the layers.
 The physical layer does not operate at
an “information” level.

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 What’s wrong with this picture?

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What’s the point?
 The purpose of belonging to a network is
for computers to communicate — an
exchange of information.
 The information must get where it’s going –
addressing is important to networking.
 If that information is incorrect or not
trustworthy, then there is no gain. Thus error
detection and correction (usually through
retransmission) are a vital part of networking.
 Another issue is that one has to know what to
do with the information once it arrives – types
play a role.

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Single packet and Multi-packet
 In a packet-switching scheme, the
information being exchanged is
transmitted in sequences of packets.
 Consequently error detection must
take place on two basic levels
 Within an individual packet
 Within a group of related packets

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Single Packet Techniques
 This sort of detection tends to take
place at Layer 2, the Data Link Layer.
 The standard techniques are:
 Parity bits
 Checksums
 Cyclic Redundancy Checks

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Multi-Packets Techniques
 The original information is broken down into a
sequence of packets or cells.
 To reconstruct the information, the receiver
must know the number of packets expected to
arrive and the order they should be placed in.
 Recall that in a connectionless scheme, packets
might be lost or arrive out-of-order.
 Multi-packet error detection/correction is
handled in Layers 3 and 4 (Network and
Transport).

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Sequencing
1 of 4
2 of 4

3 of 4

4 of 4

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Various Problems
 The protocol stack must be able to deal with
the various scenarios that might arise
 A packet might be lost along the way.
 A packet might arrive corrupted.
 If corrupted, Layer 2 will throw the packet
away, so as far as Layer 3 and higher are
concerned, corrupted and lost are the
same.
 There are more losses due to congestion
than corruption due to hardware failure.

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Various Problems
 Packets might arrive out of order.
 Duplicate packets might arrive.
 Retransmission is the solution to
most problems, if a packet was
delayed and assumed lost it would
be retransmitted. Thus if it was
only delayed there may be
duplicates.

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Who’s responsible?
 Verification is mainly the responsibility
of the source.
 After all how can the destination verify if
it did not receive a packet?
 More specifically it is the responsibility
of the source’s Layer 4.
 When a packet is transmitted, a note of
the time is made. If no acknowledgment
is received after a set amount of time,
the packet is retransmitted.

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Some destination
responsibility
 Destination Layer 3 is responsible
for ensuring that all the packets of a
given sequence have arrived.
 “I received ‘1 of 3’ and ‘3 of 3’ but
never got ‘2 of 3’
 It also eliminates duplicates.
 Destination Layer 4 is responsible
for acknowledging that the complete
set of packets arrived.

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Multiple sequences
 One has to know what position a
packet has in a sequence.
 One also has to know to what
sequence a packet belongs.
 Each communication will have a
unique connection (session) ID
number.

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Sequencing
Transmission A, 1 of 4
Transmission A: 2 of 4
Transmission B: 1 of 4
Transmission B: 3 of 4
Transmission A: 3 of 4
Transmission B: 2 of 4

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Other References

 http://www.whatis.com
 http://www.webopedia.com
 MCSE TCP/IP for Dummies, Brandon
 http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/ISOOnline.fro
ntpage

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