Availability of different operating systems, hardware platforms and the geographical dispersion of the computing resources necessitated the require of networking in such a manner that computer systems of all sizes can communicate with every other, regardless of the vendor, the operating method , the hardware platform, or geographical proximity. The definition of an internetwork right now includes the connection of other forms of pc networks such as personal area networks The network elements used to connect individual networks in the ARPANET , the predecessor of the World wide web, had been initially called gateways , but the term has been deprecated in this context, simply because of achievable confusion with functionally unique devices.
To transfer information reliably, applications should make use of an suitable Transport Layer protocol, such as Transmission Handle Protocol (TCP), which gives a dependable stream Some applications use a easier, connection-significantly less transport protocol, User Datagram Protocol (UDP), for tasks which do not need trusted delivery of information or that demand actual-time service, such as video streaming 1 or voice chat.
The most notable example of internetworking is the Web , a network of networks primarily based on several underlying hardware technologies, but unified by an internetworking protocol typical, the Net Protocol Suite , often also referred to as TCP/IP.
Such interconnection is achieved with network bridges and network switches This is occasionally incorrectly termed internetworking, but the resulting program is just a bigger, single subnetwork , and no internetworking protocol , such as Online Protocol , is essential to traverse these devices.
Internetworking started as a way to connect disparate types of networking technologies, but it became widespread by way of the building need to connect two or much more neighborhood area networks by means of some sort of wide region network The original term for an internetwork was catenet.