At times, we usually hear the term Ethernet when discussing networking, whether within a classroom or with network professionals, but what exactly is Ethernet? Here, we'll take a look at the fundamental characteristics and its functionality on a network.
In the previous chapter, we spoke about the OSI reference model and the TCP/IP stack. We've observed that layer 2 (Data Link Layer) is where the Protocol Data Units (PDUs) are either entering or exiting a system and layer 1 (Physical Layer) is the actual media used for transporting the bits. At these two layers, both the Physical and the Data Layers, we can find Ethernet:
Ethernet, defined by IEEE 802.3, is a standard that defines how network communications occur, such as the encoding and decoding of a message, the synchronization of the flow of messages, the format for messages...