HP Jetdirect 250M User Manual page 103

TCP/IP Overview
This section covers the following topics:
Introduction
IP address
Configuring IP parameters
Subnets
Gateways
Syslog server
Introduction
This appendix is intended to provide information to help you
gain a basic understanding of TCP/IP.
Similar to a common language that people use to communicate
with each other, TCP/IP (Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol) is a suite of protocols designed to
define the way computers and other devices communicate with
each other over a network.
TCP/IP is rapidly becoming the most used set of protocols. The
main reason this is happening is the fact that the internet is
based on TCP/IP. If you have a network that you wish to
connect to the internet, you must be using TCP/IP to
communicate.
Internet Protocol (IP)
When information is sent across the network, the data is
broken down into small packets. Each packet is sent
independently of one another. Each packet is encoded with IP
information, such as the IP address of the sender and receiver.
IP packets can be routed over routers and gateways, devices
that connect a network with other networks.
IP communications is connectionless. When IP packets are
sent, there is no guarantee that they arrive at their destination
in the proper sequence. That task can be performed by higher
level protocols and applications thereby allowing IP
communications to be efficient.