OSI model
| OSI model by layer |
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The Open Systems Interconnection Basc Reference Model (OSI Reference Model or OSI Model for short) is a layered, abstract description for communications and computer network protocol design, developed as part of Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) initiative. It is also called the OSI seven layer model. The layers, described below, are, from top to bottom, Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link and Physical.
Even though newer IETF and IEEE protocols, and indeed OSI protocol work subsequent to the publication of the original architectural standards have largely superseded it, the OSI model is an excellent place to begin the study of network architecture. Not understanding that the pure seven-layer model is more historic than current, many beginners make the mistake of trying to fit every protocol they study into one of the seven basic layers. This is not always easy to do as many of the protocols in use on the Internet today were designed as part of the TCP/IP model, and may not fit cleanly into the OSI model.
History
In 1977, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), began to develop its OSI networking suite. OSI has two major components: an abstract model of networking (the Basic Reference Model, or seven-layer model), and a set of concrete protocols. The standard documents that describe OSI are for sale and not currently available online.
Parts of OSI have influenced Internet protocol development, but none more than the abstract model itself, documented in ISO 7498 and its various addenda. In this model, a networking system is divided into layers. Within each layer, one or more entities implement its functionality. Each entity interacts directly only with the layer immediately beneath it, and provides facilities for use by the layer above it.
In particular, Internet protocols are deliberately not as rigorously architected as the OSI model, but a common version of the TCP/IP model splits it into four layers. The Internet Application Layer includes the OSI Application Layer, Presentation Layer, and most of the Session Layer. Its End-to-End Layer includes the graceful close function of the OSI Session Layer as well as the Transport Layer. Its Internetwork Layer is equivalent to the OSI Network Layer, while its Interface layer includes the OSI Data Link and Physical Layers. These comparisons are based on the original seven-layer protocol model as defined in ISO 7498, rather than refinements in such things as the Internal Organization of the Network Layer document.
Protocols enable an entity in one host to interact with a corresponding entity at the same layer in a remote host. Service definitions abstractly describe the functionality provided to a (N)-layer by an (N-1) layer, where N is one of the seven layers inside the local host.
Description of OSI layers
| OSI Model | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Data unit | Layer | Function | |
| Host layers |
Data | Application | Network process to application |
| Presentation | Data representation and encryption | ||
| Session | Interhost communication | ||
| Segments | Transport | End-to-end connections and reliability (TCP) | |
| Media layers |
Packets | Network | Path determination and logical addressing (IP) |
| Frames | Data link | Physical addressing (MAC & LLC) | |
| Bits | Physical | Media, signal and binary transmission | |
Layer 7: Application layer
The application layer is the seventh level of the seven-layer OSI model. It interfaces directly to and performs common application services for the application processes; it also issues requests to the presentation layer. Note carefully that this layer provides services to user-defined application processes, and not to the end user. For example, it defines a file transfer protocol, but the end user must go through an application process to invoke file transfer. The OSI model does not include human interfaces.
The common application services sublayer provides functional elements including the Remote Operations Service Element (comparable to Internet Remote Procedure Call), Association Control, and Transaction Processing (according to the ACID requirements).
Above the common application service sublayer are functions meaningful to user application programs, such as messaging (X.400), directory (X.500), file transfer (FTAM), virtual terminal (VTAM), and batch job manipulation (JTAM).
Layer 6: Presentation layer
The Presentation layer transforms the data to provide a standard interface for the Application layer. MIME encoding, data encryption and similar manipulation of the presentation are done at this layer to present the data as a service or protocol developer sees fit. Examples of this layer are converting an EBCDIC-coded text file to an ASCII-coded file, or serializing objects and other data structures into and out of XML.
Layer 5: Session layer
The Session layer controls the dialogues/connections (sessions) between computers. It establishes, manages and terminates the connections between the local and remote application. It provides for either full-duplex or half-duplex operation, and establishes checkpointing, adjournment, termination, and restart procedures. The OSI model made this layer responsible for "graceful close" of sessions, which is a property of TCP, and also for session checkpointing and recovery, which is not usually used in the Internet protocols suite. Session layers are commonly used in application environments that make use of remote procedure calls (RPCs).
iSCSI, which implements the Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI)) encapsulated into TCP/IP packets, is a session layer protocol increasingly used in Storage Area Networks and internally between processors and high-performance storage devices. iSCSI leverages TCP for guaranteed delivery, and carries SCSI command descriptor blocks (CDB) as payload to create a virtual SCSI bus between iSCSI initiators and iSCSI targets.
Layer 4: Transport layer
The Transport layer provides transparent transfer of data between end users, providing reliable data transfer services to the upper layers. The transport layer controls the reliability of a given link through flow control, segmentation/desegmentation, and error control. Some protocols are state and connection oriented. This means that the transport layer can keep track of the segments and retransmit those that fail. The best known example of a layer 4 protocol is the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The transport layer is the layer that converts messages into TCP segments or User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP), etc. packets. Perhaps an easy way to visualize the Transport Layer is to compare it with a Post Office, which deals with the dispatch and classification of mail and parcels sent. Do remember, however, that a post office manages the outer envelope of mail. Higher layers may have the equivalent of double envelopes, such as cryptographic Presentation services that can be read by the addressee only. Roughly speaking, tunneling protocols operate at the transport layer, such as carrying non-IP protocols such as IBM's SNA or Novell's IPX over an IP network, or end-to-end encryption with IPsec. While Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) might seem to be a network layer protocol, if the encapsulation of the payload takes place only at endpoint, GRE becomes closer to a transport protocol that uses IP headers but contains complete frames or packets to deliver to an endpoint. L2TP carries PPP frames inside transport packets.
Layer 3: Network layer
The Network layer provides the functional and procedural means of transferring variable length data sequences from a source to a destination via one or more networks while maintaining the quality of service requested by the Transport layer. The Network layer performs network routing functions, and might also perform fragmentation and reassembly, and report delivery errors. Routers operate at this layer—sending data throughout the extended network and making the Internet possible. This is a logical addressing scheme – values are chosen by the network engineer. The addressing scheme is hierarchical. The best known example of a layer 3 protocol is the Internet Protocol (IP). Perhaps it's easier to visualize this layer as managing the sequence of human carriers taking a letter from the sender to the local post office, trucks that carry sacks of mail to other post offices or airports, airplanes that carry airmail between major cities, trucks that distribute mail sacks in a city, and carriers that take a letter to its destinations. Think of fragmentation as splitting a large document into smaller envelopes for shipping, or, in the case of the network layer, splitting an application or transport record into packets.
Layer 2: Data Link layer
The Data Link layer provides the functional and procedural means to transfer data between network entities and to detect and possibly correct errors that may occur in the Physical layer. The best known example of this is Ethernet. This layer manages the interaction of devices with a shared medium. Other examples of data link protocols are HDLC and ADCCP for point-to-point or packet-switched networks and Aloha for local area networks. On IEEE 802 local area networks, and some non-IEEE 802 networks such as FDDI, this layer may be split into a Media Access Control (MAC) layer and the IEEE 802.2 Logical Link Control (LLC) layer. It arranges bits from the physical layer into logical chunks of data, known as frames.
This is the layer at which the bridges and switches operate. Connectivity is provided only among locally attached network nodes forming layer 2 domains for unicast or broadcast forwarding. Other protocols may be imposed on the data frames to create tunnels and logically separated layer 2 forwarding domain.
The data link layer might implement a sliding window flow control and acknowledgment mechanism to provide reliable delivery of frames; that is the case for SDLC and HDLC, and derivatives of HDLC such as LAPB and LAPD. In modern practice, only error detection, not flow control using sliding window, is present in modern data link protocols such as Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), and, on local area networks, the IEEE 802.2 LLC layer is not used for most protocols on Ethernet, and, on other local area networks, its flow control and acknowledgment mechanisms are rarely used. Sliding window flow control and acknowledgment is used at the transport layers by protocols such as TCP.
Layer 1: Physical layer
The Physical layer defines all the electrical and physical specifications for devices. In particular, it defines the relationship between a device and a physical medium. This includes the layout of pins, voltages, and cable specifications. Hubs, repeaters, network adapters and Host Bus Adapters (HBAs used in Storage Area Networks) are physical-layer devices.
To understand the function of the physical layer in contrast to the functions of the data link layer, think of the physical layer as concerned primarily with the interaction of a single device with a medium, where the data link layer is concerned more with the interactions of multiple devices (i.e., at least two) with a shared medium. The physical layer will tell one device how to transmit to the medium, and another device how to receive from it, but not, with modern protocols, how to gain access to the medium. Obsolescent physical layer standards such as RS-232 do use physical wires to control access to the medium.
The major functions and services performed by the physical layer are:
- Establishment and termination of a connection to a communications medium.
- Participation in the process whereby the communication resources are effectively shared among multiple users. For example, contention resolution and flow control.
- Modulation, or conversion between the representation of digital data in user equipment and the corresponding signals transmitted over a communications channel. These are signals operating over the physical cabling (such as copper and fiber optic) or over a radio link.
Parallel SCSI buses operate in this layer, although it must be remembered that the logical SCSI protocol is a transport-layer protocol that runs over this bus.. Various physical-layer Ethernet standards are also in this layer; Ethernet incorporates both this layer and the data-link layer. The same applies to other local-area networks, such as Token ring, FDDI, and IEEE 802.11, as well as personal area networks such as Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4.
Interfaces
In addition to standards for individual protocols in transmission, there are also interface standards for different layers to talk to the ones above or below (usually operating-system–specific). For example, Microsoft Windows' Winsock, and Unix's Berkeley sockets and System V Transport Layer Interface, are interfaces between applications (layers 5 and above) and the transport (layer 4). NDIS and ODI are interfaces between the media (layer 2) and the network protocol (layer 3).
OSI Service Specifications are abstractions of functionality commonly present in programming interfaces.
Examples
See also
External links
- ISO standard 7498-1:1994 (ZIP format)
- Cybertelecom — Layered Model of Regulation
- Template:PDFlink, Hubert Zimmermann, IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 28, no. 4, April 1980, pp. 425 - 432.
- Internetworking Basics
- osi7layer.com Amusing list of OSI mnemonics
- ^ "X.225 : Information technology – Open Systems Interconnection – Connection-oriented Session protocol: Protocol specification". Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved 10 March 2023.