Introducing TCP/IP
Because TCP/IP is so central to working with the Internet and intranets, it’s essential for you to understand it in detail. I’ll begin by giving you some background on TCP/IP and how it came about and then move on to describe the important technical goals defined by the original designers. After that, you’ll find out how TCP/IP compares to a theoretical model—the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model.
A Brief History of TCP/IP
The very first Request for Comments (RFC) was published in April 1969, which paved the way for today’s Internet and its protocols. Each of these protocols is specified in the multitude of RFCs, which are observed, maintained, sanctioned, filed, and stored by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
TCP first came on the scene in 1974. In 1978, it was divided into two distinct protocols, TCP and IP, and finally documented into an RFC in 1980. Then, in 1983, TCP/IP replaced the Network Control Protocol ...