Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol has become the de facto standard
for data transmission over the internet
Hosts are computer systems that are accessed
remotely and hold data such as web servers
TCP is concerned with the connections
of hosts, not the nature of data
Packets are collections of data forming part of a message
(constructed according to rules laid down by the protocol)
Contains standard fields like: protocol, checksum,
total length, address, time to live, packet number, data
IP is concerned with
construction of packets
Packet switching is when packets from a particular message take different routes according to availability and traffic conditions (forwarded from one router to the next) and assembled at the receiving end
Improves reliability if one route is down or congested, another can be found