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In this article, you’ll learn about what are the duties of Network Layer.
Main responsibility of Network layer is to carry the data packets from the source to the destination without changing or using it. If the packets are too large for delivery, they are fragmented i.e., broken down into smaller packets.
Duties of Network Layer are as follows :
- Internetworking: It provides the logical connection between different types of the network.
- Addressing: Addressing is help us to identify each device present on the internet uniquely. It is similar to a telephone system the address used in the network layer should be uniquely and universally define the connection of a computer.
- Routing: In a network, there are multiple roots available from a source to destination and one of them is to be chosen. The network layer decides, Which root to be taken. This is called routing.
- Packetizing: The network layer encapsulates the packets received from upper-layer protocols and makes new packets. This is called Packetizing. It is done by the network by a network layer protocol called IP (Internet Protocols).
- Fragmenting: The datagram can travel through different networks. Each router decapsulates the IP datagram from the received frame. Then datagram is processed and encapsulated in another frame.