Getting a handle on the invisible part of your network—the protocols that are in use—can be of enormous value in helping you detect problems. So far, we've talked about the tangibles of your ...

I like to think of the transport layer as the layer of the OSI Model that enables more interesting traffic. While we network engineers may love a lot of the simpler uses of the IP protocol and ...

Layers 7 through 4 are geared more to the application than the lower layers, which are designed to move packets from one place to another no matter what they contain. This top layer defines the ...

Getting started on designing a network is a task of formidable proportions, but all the more so if you are looking to build a secure IT network. Often, IT system administrators are not fully familiar ...

The third layer of the OSI Model, the network layer, is where most network engineers focus their time and expertise. As Darragh commented in my post on the data link layer, Layer 2 is cool but Layer 3 ...

The line between middleware and application software is blurred, which is why this chapter introduces both together. Middleware is software that has been abstracted out of the application layer for a ...

Terms can sometimes play tricks on the mind. Take EtherNet/IP, for example. Many people will read “IP” as internet protocol and think that EtherNet/IP refers to plain old, standard industrial Ethernet ...