Network protocol suites

In the early days of computer networking, protocols were proprietary and closely controlled by the company who designed the connection method. If you were using Novell's IPX/SPX protocol in your hosts, the same hosts would not be able to communicate with Apple's AppleTalk hosts, and vice versa. These proprietary protocol suites generally have analogous layers to the OSI reference model and follow the client-server communication method but are not compatible with each other. The proprietary protocols generally only work in LANs that are closed, without the need to communicate with the outside world. When traffic does need to move beyond the local LAN, typically an internet translation device, such as a router, is used to translate from one protocol to another. For example, in order to connect an AppleTalk-based network to the internet, a router would be used to connect and translate the AppleTalk protocol to an IP-based network. The additional translation...