The Open Systems Interconnection model (OSI model) is a conceptual model that characterizes and standardizes the communication functions of a telecommunication or computing system without regard to their underlying internal structure and technology. Its goal is the interoperability of diverse communication systems with standard protocols. The model partitions a communication system into abstraction layers. The original version of the model defined seven layers. A layer serves the layer above it and is served by the layer below it. For example, a layer that provides error-free communications across...

A network socket is an endpoint of a connection across a computer network. Today, most communication between computers is based on the Internet Protocol; therefore most network sockets are Internet sockets. More precisely, a socket is a handle (abstract reference) that a local program can pass to the networking application programming interface (API) to use the connection, for example "send this data on this socket". Sockets are often represented internally as simple integers, which identify which connection to use. A socket API is an application programming interface (API), usually provided by...