Computer Protocols

Computer protocols are the mode of communication between two computers. When computers communicate, everything should be known in advance such as “What should be the information?”, “How the information should be exchanged?” etc. Hence standard methods for communication are used and these are known as protocols. These are established by an international agreement so that everywhere computers can talk to one another. There are several kind of protocols. Some of them are as follows:

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol): It is the basic mode of communication between the computers. It can also be used in private networks such as for intranet or extranet. Whenever a computer is setup for a direct access to the internet, it receives a copy of TCP/IP so that it can easily communicate with all the other computers on the network.

TCP/IP is program of 2 layers. The higher layer i.e. TCP, which breaks down the file or a packet into smaller packets which are further transmitted over the internet. At the receiving end the TCP reassembles the packets into the original message. The lower layer is IP, which handles the address part of the packet so that the packet reaches to the right destination.

TCP/IP uses client-server model where a computer user (client) makes a request and is responded (e.g. sending a webpage) by another computer (server).It is basically a point-to-point communication

ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol): It basically defines some number of messages which are used for the management and diagnostic purposes.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol): This is an email protocol. Email also requires its own set of rules for transferring and receiving the emails. For e.g. when we configure Outlook Express, an IP address of SMTP is required.

POP3 (Post Office Protocol): This is also an email protocol.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol): Web pages are developed in a standard language of HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language). IT is transmitted over the net in a standard format and way known as HTTP. This protocol uses TCP/IP for the transmissions over the web.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol): It provides a way for copying files over the network from one computer to the other. It’s now used less after WWW has entered into the protocols suite. Its main use is to upload the files on the web. If FTP is involved, the URL will contain ftp: in the beginning.