Understanding Layer 2, 3 and 4 Protocols: The Key to Content Switching Success

Understanding the concept of a user session—the total user experience of interacting over a period of time with a resource—and how that maps down the OSI seven-layer model and into the frames, packets, and TCP sessions below is key to understanding and successfully deploying content switching. This sample chapter from Optimizing Network Performance with Content Switching: Server, Firewall and Cache Load Balancing reviews the workings of the TCP/IP protocol stack and the higher layer applications such as HTTP and FTP that it supports, and looks at standard Layer 2, 3 and 4 networking concepts, in preparation for subsequent discussion of application layer protocols common to content switching.

Title: Optimizing Network Performance with Content Switching: Server, Firewall and Cache Load Balancing
ISBN: 0131014684
Published: July 2003
Authors: Philip Goldie, Matthew Syme
Chapter: Chapter 2: Understanding Layer 2, 3, and 4 Protocols
Published by Prentice Hall