PXIPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange and SPX stands for Sequenced Packet Exchange and was designed by the Xerox Corporation. IPX/SPX was later chosen by Novell as the protocol to be used for the NetWare network operating system (Whitehead 126). IPX/SPX is also widely used by other operating systems including both the Windows 9x and Windows NT families. The IPX/SPX protocol is found at the Network Layer of the OSI Reference Model (Dean 76).As mentioned above, IPX and SPX is part of a protocol suite, or protocol stack. Each protocol is responsible for different duties. All the IPX protocol is responsible for is transferring information between two devices. The SPX protocol makes the connection between the two devices, monitors the exchange, and ensures the integrity of the data (Whitehead 126).Using a protocol to transfer data through an unlike network is referred to as tunneling. IPX/SPX uses tunneling to exchange data between two NetWare networks. The tunnel is the TCP/IP protocols. Data and the IPX/SPX protocols are bound together inside the TCP/IP protocols so that information can be transferred between networks or over the Internet (Whitehead 127).NetBEUISytec inc. first developed NetBIOS for IBM to furnish Transport and Session Layer services for programs on small networks. NetBIOS provided a peer-to-peer network for a small number of computers, up to about 200. The NetBIOS protocol was sufficient for a couple of years. NetBEUI was released in 1985 to add more functionality to NetBIOS. NetBEUI stands for NetBIOS Extended User Interface (Ogletree 264).NetBEUI is a very popular protocol for small networks because it is very easy to configure, efficient, and is not a heavy user of system resources. NetBEUI is also faster than most of the other popular protocols. Configuration of NetBEUI is easy because all a computer on a NetBEUI network needs is a unique name and the protocol loaded. No addressing is required ...
