An Introduction to Network Architectures and Protocols

This tutorial paper is intended for the reader who is unfamiliar with computer networks, to prepare him for reading the more detailed technical literature on the subject. The approach here is to start with an ordered list of the functions that any network must provide in tieing two end users together, and then to indicate how this leads naturally to layered peer protocols out of which the architecture of a computer network is constructed. After a discussion of a few block diagrams of private (commercially provided) and public (common carrier) networks, the layer and header structures of SNA and DNA architectures and the .25 interface are briefly described.