FEATURE ARTICLE: (COMMSDESIGN) The 7 Faces of The OSI Networking Model – Part 1
Tuesday, April 15th, 2003
The Seven Faces of the OSI Network Model: Part 1
By John Drabik, Arcturus Networks
For many in the communication industry, the open system interconnect (OSI) network model is a simply a stack. But, designers shouldn’t be so quick to diminish the value that the OSI model provides to the networking sector. While appearing to be simply a stack on the surface, this model is a well-designed, layered architecture for efficient intersystem and intrasystem communication.
In this two-part series, we’ll provide a different view of the OSI model, showing how the layers are interconnected and what protocol services are available at each level. In Part 1, we’ll provide a general overview of OSI and then examine Layers 5 to 7 of the stack. In Part 2, we’ll examine Layers 4 to 1 as well as some non-layer items such as network-aware bootloaders.