Technology: What is a communication (network) protocol?

'A1. Standard communication protocol' definition and examples

FAIR Definition

A1 Standard communication protocol

(Meta)data are retrievable by their identifier using a standardised communications protocol Learn more

Why

Communications devices have to agree on many physical aspects of the data to be exchanged before successful transmission can take place.The rules defining transmissions are called protocols. Communication protocol [Wikipedia]

Lists of network protocols

What

There are many properties of a transmission that a protocol can define. Common ones include: packet size, transmission speed, error correction types, handshaking and synchronization techniques, address mapping, acknowledgement processes, flow control, packet sequence controls, routing, address formatting. The Internet Standards Process [RFC2026]

ISO/TC 22/SC 31 Data communication

OSI model

is a conceptual model that characterises and standardises 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 Open Systems Interconnection Model

TCP/IP model

The Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) is the conceptual model and set of communications protocols used in the Internet. The Internet protocol suite provides end-to-end data communication specifying how data should be packetized, addressed, transmitted, routed, and received

Internet protocol suite

Examples

File Transfer Protocol (FTP), TCP/IP, User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Post Office Protocol (POP3), Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). HTTP

SPDY