What You Will Learn
After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions:
What is TCP/IP?
How are TCP/IP and the Internet related?
What are five critical communications functions that TCP/IP can perform?
How do you know when you are using TCP/IP?
What can't TCP/IP do? (In other words, what communications functions must it rely on other mechanisms to do?)
Answers to these basic questions demystify TCP/IP and create the foundation of knowledge that you build upon throughout this book. After finishing this book, you will have a solid appreciation for TCP/IP, how it works, and why it's important.
TCP/IP isn't just random characters left in the bottom of the bowl when you're finished with your alphabet soup; it just looks that way! TCP/IP is a mouthful of an acronym that stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. One look at the full name and it's immediately obvious why you use the acronym instead. Neither its full name nor its acronym do TCP/IP any justice. Both are uninformative and even a bit misleading.
It's impossible to understate TCP/IP's value and significance. Without it, you literally wouldn't be able to access the Internet or anything connected to it. Think about it: no swapping MP3 or DivX files, no catching the latest news or stock quotes, no e-mail, no instant messages or online chat rooms…okay, so maybe you could live without chat rooms! The point remains: Everything you do via the Internet would be impossible without TCP/IP. A bunch of other private networks would be equally unusable, too!
TCP/IP is a set of data communications mechanisms, embodied in software, that let you use the Internet and countless other private networks. Each mechanismalso known as a protocolis designed to perform a specific function. These protocols are divided into two categories based on their function:
One focuses on processing and handling data from applications and is known as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) suite.
The other is more network oriented and designed to accommodate the transmission and receipt of application data across a network. This second suite is called the Internet Protocol (IP) suite.
This extensive set of protocols forms the TCP/IP suite of protocols. TCP/IP enables different types of computers and other devices to use networks to contact each other and share information in a wide variety of ways including e-mail. Networks and networking protocols existed before TCP/IP came along; they just didn't allow a network as powerful and universal as the Internet to be built! That was the beauty of TCP/IP.