1. Protocols

Computers on a network must all have a way of being able to 'talk' or 'communicate' with one another and they do this by following a protocol.

A protocol is a set of rules which define:

  • How to establish communication between the machines
  • The format of any data which is to be exchanged between the machines
  • How errors in the data will be detected
  • How errors will be corrected
  • Methods of compressing the data to transmit it faster and more efficiently
  • How the connection between the machines is to be terminated

The protocol that is used on most LANs and the Internet is known as the TCP/IP protocol.

If any computers on the Internet are not using this standard then they will not be able to communicate with others that are.

Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you

Click on this link: TCP/IP

 

Another extremely common protocol in use on the web is HTTP - Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. which is what most page URLs start with. See what you can find out about this.

 

Challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you

Click on this link: HTTP