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Characteristics of TCP Reliable Delivery
TCP provides a reliable, byte-stream, full-duplex
inter-process communications service to application
programs/processes. The service is
connection-oriented and uses the concept of
port numbers to identify processes.
- Reliable
- All data will be delivered correctly to the destination
process, without errors, even though the underlying packet delivery
service (IP) is unreliable -- see later.
- Connection-oriented
- Two process which desire to communicate using TCP must first
request a connection. A connection is closed when
communication is no longer desired.
- Byte-stream
- An application which uses the TCP service is unaware of the
fact that data is broken into segments for
transmission over the network.
- Full-duplex
- Once a TCP connection is established, application data can flow
in both directions simultaneously -- note, however, that most
application protocols do not take advantage of this.
- Port Numbers
- Port numbers identify processes/connections in TCP.
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