A tutorial on the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) networking reference model plus tips on how to memorize the seven layers. The Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model is a conceptual framework that ...

First off, howdy and welcome to the inaugural post of the EtherGeek blog. My name is Josh Stephens and I’m Head Geek and VP of Technology at SolarWinds, an IT management software company in Austin.

Thanks for your comments on my first EtherGeek post on understanding the OSI Model. I especially enjoyed learning new ways to remember the OSI Model; for example: Please Do Not Throw Stale Pizza Away.

The OSI model defines protocols for how a network technically handles communications at the various functional layers. Starting with electrons and photons at the physical layer (Layer 1), the model ...