A communication protocol establishes the necessary guidelines for the exchange of information in a system.
Protocols are instructions, regulations or rules that guide an action or that establish certain bases for the development of a procedure. Communication , for its part, is a notion with multiple uses that, in general terms, is used to name the dissemination and reception of messages.
With these definitions, we can begin to understand the concept of communication protocol . This is the set of guidelines that enable different elements that are part of a system to establish communications with each other, exchanging information.
How a communication protocol works
Communication protocols establish the parameters that determine the semantics and syntax that must be used in the communicative process in question. The rules established by the protocol also make it possible to recover any data that is lost in the exchange.
If we focus on computers , the communication protocol determines how messages should circulate within a network. When the circulation of information takes place on the Internet, there are a series of specific protocols that make the exchange possible.
On the Internet there are several communication protocols.
Its use on the Internet
The most important communication protocols on the Internet are TCP (whose acronym can be translated as Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol). Their joint action ( TCP/IP ) enables the link between all the computers that access the network.
P.O.P., SMTP y HTTP son otros protocolos vinculados a Internet, que los usuarios suelen utilizar a diario aunque no lo adviertan ni sepan cómo funcionan. Estos protocolos permiten navegar a través de los sitios web, enviar correo electrónico, escuchar música online, etc.
TCP
The Transmission Control Protocol is, as explained above, one of the basic elements of the Internet. Its creation dates back to the period between 1973 and 1974 and is attributed to the engineer Vinton Gray Cerf and the researcher Robert Elliot Kahn.
Among the uses of this communication protocol is the creation of connections between various programs present in a data network to carry out a flow of information. Thanks to its application in such a case, it is guaranteed that the data reaches its destination without errors and in the same order as it was before being sent. In addition, TCP offers the possibility of recognizing each application from the rest, thanks to the use of ports .
When communication is carried out over the Internet, for example, the router must simply take care of sending data but not monitoring it, since TCP is responsible for this, which is also known as the layer name. transport , between the application and the Internet protocol (IP).
IP
This communication protocol is much better known by Internet users , although only experts know in depth what it really is about. The function of IP, which is found at the network layer , is to allow communication in two directions, at destination or origin, so that data transmission is possible through a connectionless protocol that sends switched packets through of different physical networks that have been previously linked following the OSI standard .
Notions linked to the IP communication protocol
The three concepts highlighted in the previous paragraph are defined below:
* non-connection-oriented protocol : this is a communication between two nodes on a network in which messages can be sent without the need to request approval;
* packet switched : a packet is information grouped so that each one contains data and control information, which serves to specify the path that the packet must follow until it reaches its destination;
* OSI standard : comes from the acronym Open System Interconnection , which in English means Open Interconnection System , although it is also known as the open systems interconnection model . Its creation took place in 1980 with the intention of establishing a context in which communication architectures between different systems could be based.