LAN Switching first-step

Chapter Summary

The internetworking environment is governed by two complementary rule sets: standards and models. Standards are the laws that vendors must adhere to if they are to interoperate with other vendors, in turn making themselves available and useful for the end user. Some vendors develop special features that can be configured and used only on their equipment; these are called proprietary features. Keep in mind, a proprietary implementation can limit itself in its use and therefore is not always an attractive option when implementing a network.

The OSI model is the universal model in the networking environment and is made up of seven layers. Each of the seven layers provides services to the layer above it and depends on the layer below. ...