History
Prior to OSI, networking was largely either government-sponsored (ARPANET, CYCLADES) or vendor-developed and proprietary standards such as SNA and DECnet. In the UK work on the Experimental Packet Switched system circa 1973, the need to define so called higher level protocols above the HDLC link level communications protocol and the content of an NCC (UK) publication 'Why Distributed Computing' resulting from considerable research into future configurations for computer systems resulted in the UK presenting the case for an International Standards Committee to cover this area at the ISO meeting in Sydney in March 1977. OSI was hence an industry effort, attempting to get industry participants to agree on common network standards to provide multi-vendor interoperability. It was common for large networks to support multiple network protocol suites, with many devices unable to interoperate with other devices because of a lack of common protocols. However, while OSI developed its networking standards, TCP/IP came into widespread use on multivendor networks for internetworking, while on the local network level both Ethernet and token ring gained prominence.
The OSI reference model was a major advance in the teaching of network concepts. It promoted the idea of a consistent model of protocol layers, defining interoperability between network devices and software. The OSI model was defined in raw form in Washington DC in February 1978 by Hubert Zimmerman of France and the refined standard was published by the ISO in 1984.
Read more about this topic: Open Systems Interconnection
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“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews—Micah, Isaiah, and the rest—who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)