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Lesson 9 Networking standards
Objective Describe the importance of networking standards in e-Commerce solutions.

Networking Standards and Concepts

Key networking standards

A protocol is a specific implementation of a subset of the Open Standards Interconnection (OSI) [1] reference model. Protocols as they apply to networking are usually broken into four categories, including:
  1. LAN protocols
  2. WAN protocols
  3. Routing protocols
  4. Network protocols
Largely, protocol categories match the subgroups in our networking discussion.

Seven Layers in the OSI Model

There are seven layers in the OSI model. The higher layers (5 through 7) involve applications and thus are software oriented. The lower levels involve the physical implementation, and are known as the data transport layers.

Key standards

No other area of computer-based technology rests more on standards than networking. In terms of protocols, the most important networking standards for e-Commerce and the Web include TCP/IP and HTTP.
The list of networking standards and protocols for networking hardware to software is endless. There is no way, given the breadth of this course, that we can dive in deep enough to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of all the network standards. We do suggest that the e-Commerce architect possess a solid understanding of most of the networking standards. There are plenty of public sources of education that go into detail about networking standards.

Networking Standard Organizations

  1. International Organization for Standards (ISO): Authored the OSI Reference Model. This model acts as an architectural standard for virtually all commercial networking.
    www.iso.org
  2. Below is an image of a (FDDI) Fiber Distributed Data Interface
    Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)
    Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)

    (ANSI) American National Standards Institute authored theFiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)[2] for use with fiber optic networks.
    http://www.ansi.org/
  3. International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), formerly known as the CCITT: Developed the X.25 packet switching protocol standard.
    http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/index.html
    X.25 : Allow remote devices to communicate with each other across high speed digital links without the expense of individual leased line.
  4. Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE): Responsible for the IEEE 802 standard series, which underlie most LANs and WANs.
    http://standards.ieee.org/faqs/buzzwords.html
  5. Electronic Industries Associations (EIA): Authored the EIA/TIA-232 standard (formerly known as RS-232), used for remote dial-up networking. Internet Activities Board (IAB): An important standards committee for the Internet, the IAB influences TCP/IP and SNMP
  6. Internet Activities Board (IAB): An important standards committee for the Internet, the IAB influences TCP/IP and SNMP (the Simple Network Management Protocol; the protocol used by many network management solutions).
    http://www.iab.org/
    Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP): Provides a common messaging technique through which various systems management elements can share information and deploy agents and actions.

Networking standards organizations

Several organizations participate in the networking standards process, and some of the key networking standards for which they are responsible are included in the Detail section. Click the Standards Detail button to explore some of these resources.

[1]The OSI model: All networking protocol and software standards, as well as hardware standards, operate within an extremely important standard, known as Open Standards Interconnection (OSI) reference model.
[2](FDDI):Fiber Distributed Data Interface: A procedure for sending digital data over fiber optic cables. Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) is a standard for data transmission in a local area network. It uses optical fiber as its standard underlying physical medium, although it was also later specified to use copper cable, in which case it may be called CDDI (Copper Distributed Data Interface), standardized as TP-PMD (Twisted-Pair Physical Medium-Dependent), also referred to as TP-DDI (Twisted-Pair Distributed Data Interface).