OSIbased

OSIbased refers to systems, protocols, or software that are designed to align with the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model published by the International Organization for Standardization. It emphasizes layering into seven distinct levels—Physical, Data Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, and Application—and the use of clearly defined interfaces and service expectations between layers.

The OSI model was developed in the 1980s as a reference framework to promote interoperability among multinational networks. In practice, the Internet today primarily relies on the TCP/IP suite, and few technologies are deployed as fully OSI-based end-to-end stacks. Nevertheless, OSI-based concepts continue to influence education, standards development, and certain vendor platforms that implement OSI-based services or emulate OSI layering to maintain compatibility with ISO standards.

OSI-based designs typically separate concerns at each layer and specify service interfaces and protocols for each layer, sometimes including management and security services as part of the model. Some OSI-based products implement OSI standards for network management, security services, or application-layer interfaces that align with OSI service definitions.

Advantages of OSI-based approaches include modularity, clear boundary definitions, and well-defined testing and development processes. Criticisms focus on complexity and potential performance overhead, and the fact that the TCP/IP stack provides sufficient functionality for most networks, which has limited the adoption of fully OSI-based end-to-end implementations.

See also: Open Systems Interconnection, OSI model, TCP/IP, network protocol.