Getting started on designing a network is a task of formidable proportions, but all the more so if you are looking to build a secure IT network. Often, IT system administrators are not fully familiar ...

Ethernet is a layer 2 data link protocol that is widely used with the TCP/IP protocol, which resides at layers 3 and 4. To understand network communications, it is essential to learn about the ...

Like many words in the English language, “network” and “protocol” have different meanings, depending on the context. In the context of digital communications, Merriam-Webster defines network as “a ...

Peeling back the layers of IoT devices reveals most of them are nothing more than what are already on the Internet in the form of present-day M2M devices. In just six years, according to Cisco Systems ...

First, and foremost, the OSI stack is just a theoretical reference model. There is no actual OSI software. It has been around since about 1980, and it is based upon recommendations from the ITU-T and ...

Terms can sometimes play tricks on the mind. Take EtherNet/IP, for example. Many people will read “IP” as internet protocol and think that EtherNet/IP refers to plain old, standard industrial Ethernet ...

In the previous two articles, I described the hardware and software required to build an IoT device. These devices (the “Things” in the Internet of Things) are an essential part of an IoT system.

Today’s designers are turning to wireless technology more than ever before to get devices to talk to each other. Especially when battery-powered, this means that we no longer need to string wires ...