Getting a handle on the invisible part of your network—the protocols that are in use—can be of enormous value in helping you detect problems. So far, we've talked about the tangibles of your ...

For many in the communication industry, the open system interconnect (OSI) network model is a simply a stack. But, designers shouldn't be so quick to diminish the value that the OSI model provides to ...

First off, howdy and welcome to the inaugural post of the EtherGeek blog. My name is Josh Stephens and I’m Head Geek and VP of Technology at SolarWinds, an IT management software company in Austin.

According to the OSI Model, the session layer is where connections are established, managed, and torn down. For connection-oriented network protocols, understanding how the session layer works, and ...

We recently advised that people in the business of planning, building and supporting computer networks should not lose sight of the mythical OSI Layer 8. We define Layer 8 as the human-to-human ...

Knowledge of the structure of Internet Protocol (IP) packets is a fundamental part of understanding the Internet and how information moves from one point to another. The benefits of such knowledge ...