Features Of IP

Added 26 Jul 2008

IP is a connectionless protocol. This means that it has no concept of a job or a session. Each packet is treated as an entity in itself. IP is rather like a postal worker sorting letters. He is not concerned with whether a packet is one of a batch. He simply routes packets, one at a time, to the next location on the delivery route. 

IP is also unconcerned with whether a packet reaches its eventual destination, or whether packets arrive in the original order. There is no information in a packet to identify it as part of a sequence or as belonging to a particular job. Consequently, IP cannot tell if packets were lost or whether they were received out of order. IP is an unreliable protocol. Any mechanisms for ensuring that data sent arrives correct and intact are provided by the higher- level protocols in the suite. 

in-article · 336x280