OSI model

The Open Systems Interconnection model (OSI model) is a conceptual model that characterizes and standardizes the communication functions of a telecommunication or computing system without regard to its underlying internal structure and technology. Its goal is the interoperability of diverse communication systems with standard communication protocols. The model partitions a communication system into abstraction layers. The original version of the model had seven layers. A layer serves the layer above it and is served by the layer below it. For example, a layer that provides error-free communications across a network provides the path needed by applications above it, while it calls the next lower layer to send and receive packets that constitute the contents of that path. Two instances at the same layer are visualized as connected by a horizontal connection in that layer. The model is a product of the Open Systems Interconnection project at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Prior to the inception of the OSI project, networking was largely either government-sponsored (ARPANET in the US, CYCLADES in France) or vendor-developed with proprietary standards, such as the System network architecture (SNA) of IBM, and DECnet of Digital Equipment Corporation. An Experimental Packet Switched system in the UK circa 1973, also identified the need for defining higher level protocols. The NCC (UK) publication 'Why Distributed Computing' which came from considerable research into future configurations for computer systems, resulted in the UK presenting the case for an international standards committee to cover this area at the ISO meeting in Sydney in March 1977. In the late 1970s, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) conducted a program to develop general standards and methods of networking. A similar process evolved at the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT, from French: Comité Consultatif International Téléphonique et Télégraphique). Both bodies developed documents that defined similar networking models. The OSI model was first defined in raw form in Washington, DC in February 1978 by Hubert Zimmermann of France and the refined standard was published by the ISO in 1984. In 1983, these two documents were merged to form a standard called The Basic Reference Model for Open Systems Interconnection. The standard is usually referred to as Open Systems Interconnection Reference Model, OSI Reference Model, or simply OSI model. It was published in 1984 by both the ISO, as standard ISO 7498, and the renamed CCITT (now called the Telecommunications Standardization Sector of the International Telecommunication Union or ITU-T) as standard X.200. OSI had two major components, an abstract model of networking, called the Basic Reference Model or seven-layer model, and a set of specific protocols. The OSI reference model was a major advance in the teaching of network concepts. It promoted the idea of a consistent model of protocol layers, defining interoperability between network devices and software.