Special Edition Using Java™ 2 Enterprise Edition

Basic Features of Internet Protocols

Obviously, because there are Internet standards for everything from the format of individual data packets to real-time video and audio conferencing, it's tough to find common features in protocols. If you look at some of the most common protocols, however, you see many similarities.

First of all, most of the upper-level protocols use either TCP or UDP as a transport mechanism. Of the upper-level protocols, the most commonly used are HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), FTP (File Transfer Protocol), and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). These protocols all use TCP and are all text-based. That is, the commands and responses used in these protocols are all human-readable text. Some of the other protocols are ...