Communication Protocols
A communication protocol allows two or more nodes of a communications system to transmit or exchange data, especially across a computer network. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchronization of communication and possible error recovery methods. Network protocols include mechanisms for device identification and the establishment of connections between them, as well as formatting rules that specify how packets and data are structured in messages that are sent and received. Some protocols support message recognition and data compression, designed for reliable, high-performance network communication. Protocols may be implemented by hardware, software or a combination of both. They are the backbone of the internet and other communication systems, ensuring that information is transmitted reliably and in the correct format.
Computer Networks
A computer network is a set of interconnected computing devices that can exchange data and share resources with each other. Computers are connected over digital interconnections that are made up of telecommunication network technologies, based on physically wired, optical, and wireless radio-frequency (RF) methods, and may be arranged in a variety of network topologies. The network permits nodes connected to it to transfer messages to other nodes by merely providing the content of a message and the address of the destination node and letting the network find the way to deliver the message to the destination node. Each connected device is uniquely identified within a network segment by the Media Access Control (MAC) address, which is assigned to a Network Interface Controller (NIC).
Traffic Management
Modern cloud applications can be built with different architectures and technologies, but in general they expose services that can be consumed by various clients, such as Web, Mobile, Desktop and Embedded applications. Cloud services that are open to the Internet can be accessed by a large number of clients and therefore incoming network traffic must be managed and controlled to ensure high availability, scalability, and performance. Some of the clients that try to access these services can be unauthorized or even malicious. In order to protect the services against such attempts, access control and security measures must be applied.
Application traffic management (ATM) refers to techniques for intercepting, analyzing, decoding, and directing web traffic to the optimum resources based on specific policies. Also called network traffic management, it allows network administrators to significantly increase overall network application performance by routing and filtering packets based on content in their payloads or headers. By applying these standards for security, scalability, availability, and performance to any IP-based application users can save costs and improve efficiency.