Ethernet
Ethernet was originally developed by DEC, Intel and XEROX (as the "DIX" standard) for passing data between office devices. The term nowadays generally refers to the IEEE 802.3 CSMA/CD specification, published in 1985. Because of the high acceptance around the world this technology is available everywhere and is very economical. This means that it is easy to make connections to existing networks.
There are now a number of quite different transmission media: coaxial cable (10Base5), optical fiber (10BaseF) or twisted pairs (10BaseT) with screen (STP) or without screen (UTP). Using Ethernet, different topologies can be built such as ring, line or star.
Ethernet transmits Ethernet packets from a sender to one or more receivers. This transmission takes place without acknowledgement, and without the repetition of lost packets. To achieve reliable data communication, there are protocols, such as TCP/IP, that can run on top of Ethernet.
Basic principles
The Internet Protocol (IP)
The internet protocol (IP) forms the basis of this data communication. IP transports data packets from one device to another; the devices can be in the same network, or in different networks. IP here looks after the address management (finding and assigning MAC-IDs), segmentation and routing. Like the Ethernet protocol, IP does not guarantee that the data is transported - data packets can be lost, or their sequence can be changed.
TCP/IP was developed to provide standardised, reliable data exchange between any numbers of different networks. TCP/IP was developed to provide standardised, reliable data exchange between any numbers of different networks. Although the term is often used as if it were a single concept, a number of protocols are layered together: e.g. IP, TCP, UDP, ARP and ICMP.
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) which runs on top of IP is a connection-oriented transport protocol. It includes error detection and handling mechanisms. Lost telegrams are repeated.
User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
UDP is connectionless transport protocol. It provides no control mechanism when exchanging data between sender and receiver. This results in a higher processing speed than, for example, TCP. Checking whether or not the telegram has arrived must be carried out by the higher-level protocol.
Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)
It is used by end devices, to exchange information about the current status of the internet protocol.
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
Performs conversion between the IP addresses and MAC addresses.
BootP
The BootP protocol allows the TCP/IP address to be set or altered, by addressing the network device with its MAC-ID.