Introducing Ethernet and its evolution

At times, we usually hear the term Ethernet when discussing networking, whether within a classroom or with network professionals, but what exactly is Ethernet? Here, we'll take a look at the fundamental characteristics and its functionality on a network.

In the previous chapter, we spoke about the OSI reference model and the TCP/IP stack. We've observed that layer 2 (Data Link Layer) is where the Protocol Data Units (PDUs) are either entering or exiting a system and layer 1 (Physical Layer) is the actual media used for transporting the bits. At these two layers, both the Physical and the Data Layers, we can find Ethernet:

Ethernet, defined by IEEE 802.3, is a standard that defines how network communications occur, such as the encoding and decoding of a message, the synchronization of the flow of messages, the format for messages, and the size of each message. In Chapter 3, Ethernet, we'll be going even further into the operations of Ethernet and how it functions and helps devices communicate on a network.