Chapter 12: Common Network Protocols

Chapter 12: Common Network Protocols

Major Protocols

While a great many protocols have been developed for use with local area networks, most users of commercial LAN products are likely to encounter only a few of them. This chapter discusses in broad terms the five protocol families that are most likely to be of use or concern to network administrators and users. Some of the protocols are ?open?; i.e., they are specified and continue to be evolved by standards committees. Some are ?proprietary?; i.e., they have been designed by a single company which owns the rights to the protocol and may license the technology to other companies at its discretion.

LAN technology is not stagnant. Rather, it is a rapidly developing field, and information given in any book (including this one) rapidly becomes outdated. Therefore, readers should treat this chapter as a springboard to further and more recent information about the protocol families in which they are interested.

Each of the protocols presented in this chapter is an important protocol that affects many LAN users and administrators, and will be presented in a simple overview form. There are certainly other important protocols that are not mentioned in this chapter, and the documentation supplied with those protocols should be consulted for both a simple overview and for references that will supply more detailed information.

NetBIOS (Not a Protocol)

NetBIOS (the NETwork Basic Input/Output System) was originally designed by Sytex for the IBM broadband LAN product, and was implemented in software on the...

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Local Area Networks: An Introduction to the Technology

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Chapter 12: Common Network Protocols

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