history of transmission control protocol TCP

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) are two of the leading protocols that were developed for the transmission of data between computers, servers and other devices. They were developed during the 1960s with the development of the Network Control Protocol, which would allow the existence of ARPANET, basically the first network. Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn were the key players who proposed a set of key protocols and standards to allow these machines to transmit packets of information to each other (Studenting, n.d.), with the idea being that this would serve as the basis for conventions for interconnecting networks, and for routing traffic.

The initial design for TCP came with four objectives: network connectivity, distribution, error recovery and black box design. The latter term meant that no internal changes would be needed to a network for it to connect to other networks; in other words it would be standardized and work out of the box (History – Computer.com, n.d.).

The development of TCP allowed for the subsequent development of the Internet. The key component was that this was a standardized means for networks to communicate, so that any network being built should utilize this protocol. The protocol managed things like routing, and how the computers would communicate with each other. With every network using the same standard, the Internet was now possible, though it would not be developed right away.

In 1983, it was mandated that all computers connected to ARPANET use TCP/IP (Studenting, n.d.), and this mandate basically set the stage for the dominance of these protocols. The reason was simply that the development of other competing protocols would make the development of a global network difficult. Everybody on ARPANET had to be able to talk to each other using the same protocols or otherwise, conceptually, the network would not work as intended. Originally, ARPANET was designed to work with a number of different protocols. Trying to use multiple different protocols created particular challenges and added needless complexity to ARPANET, which is why the idea came about to have a standardized set of protocols, which in turn would allow ARPANET to properly scale (Kozierok, 2005)

TCP has continued to evolve over time. By 1988, TCP was adapted to incorporate congestion avoidance mechanisms. By 1994, timeouts and delays were measured. 1997 saw further congestion avoidance mechanisms and recovery algorithms. 2002 saw the development of 3G and by 2006 4G was first deployed in South Korea. The rapid and massive growth of the Internet demanded evolution to TCP, and drove the changes and updates that were designed to deal with the problems of today's internet. The original TCP was not widely used, and by the mid-1980s only had 1000 hosts, so these changes were a natural evolution to help TCP cope with the challenges and strains of deploying network connectivity to the entire world. (MacVittie, 2014).

Thus, the protocols were developed as a means of aiding communication between computers in ARPANET, but there were other protocols also at work for a while, until TCP/IP were decided to be the standard protocols for the enter network. The simplicity of the TCP concept, and the effectiveness with which it could be used, were the driving factors in its adoption. It has evolved since that point, in particular to help facilitate the deployment of networking with the Internet, to the entire world. But the core basis of TCP is still there in every Internet usage today, the modern version of that original vision that came about in the 1970s with Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn.



References

History-computer.com (no dtate). TCP/IP/ History-Computer.com. Retrieved November 2, 0217 from http://history-computer.com/Internet/Maturing/TCPIP.html

Kozierok, D. (2005) TCP/IP overview and history. The TCP/IP Guide. Retrieved November 2, 2017 from http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_TCPIPOverviewandHistory.htm

MacVittie, L. (2014) The evolution of TCP. DevCentral. Retrieved November 2, 2017 from https://devcentral.f5.com/articles/the-evolution-of-tcp

Studenting (no date). History of TCP/IP Studenting. Retrieved November 2, 2017 from http://student.ing-steen.se/IPv4/TCP-IP.pdf