A network protocol is a collection of rules and data formats that define intercommunication between applications. For example, a web browser and a web server communicate via Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). HTTP is more like a set of rules than a transport protocol. Transport protocols are at the base of every network communication. An example of a transport protocol would be TCP. When we mentioned the TCP/IP suite, we meant the implementation of TCP over IP. We can consider the Internet Protocol (IP) as the heart of internet communications.
It provides host-to-host routing and addressing. Everything that we send or receive via the internet is packaged as an IP packet. The following is what the IPv4 packet looks like: ...
