Difference between PACKETS and FRAMES

Question

Two words commonly used in networking world - Packets and frames   Can anyone please give the detail difference between these two words   Hope it might sounds silly but does it mean as below  A packet is the PDU Protocol Data Unit  at layer 3  network layer - ip packet  of the networking OSI model   A frame is the PDU of layer 2  data link  of the OSI model

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Packet

A packet is the unit of data that is routed between an origin and a destination on the Internet or any other packet-switched network. When any file (e-mail message, HTML file, Graphics Interchange Format file, Uniform Resource Locator request, and so forth) is sent from one place to another on the Internet, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) layer of TCP/IP divides the file into "chunks" of an efficient size for routing. Each of these packets is separately numbered and includes the Internet address of the destination. The individual packets for a given file may travel different routes through the Internet. When they have all arrived, they are reassembled into the original file (by the TCP layer at the receiving end).

Frame

1) In telecommunications, a frame is data that is transmitted between network points as a unit complete with addressing and necessary protocol control information. A frame is usually transmitted serial bit by bit and contains a header field and a trailer field that "frame" the data. (Some control frames contain no data.)

2) In time-division multiplexing (TDM), a frame is a complete cycle of events within the time division period.

3) In film and video recording and playback, a frame is a single image in a sequence of images that are recorded and played back.

4) In computer video display technology, a frame is the image that is sent to the display image rendering devices. It is continuously updated or refreshed from a frame buffer, a highly accessible part of video RAM.

5) In artificial intelligence (AI) applications, a frame is a set of data with information about a particular object, process, or image. An example is the iris-print visual recognition system used to identify users of certain bank automated teller machines. This system compares the frame of data for a potential user with the frames in its database of authorized users.

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Packets and Frames are the names given to Protocol data units  PDUs  at different network layers  Segments Datagrams are units of data in the Transport Layer  In the case of the internet  the term Segment typically refers to TCP  while Datagram typically refers to UDP  However Datagram can also be used in a more general sense and refer to other layers  link    Datagram A self-contained  independent entity of data carrying sufficient information to be routed from the source to the destination computer without reliance on earlier exchanges between this source and destination computer andthe transporting network    Packets are units of data in the Network Layer  IP in case of the Internet   Frames are units of data in the Link Layer  e g  Wifi  Bluetooth  Ethernet  etc

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Actually  there are five words commonly used when we talk about layers of reference models  or protocol stacks   data  segment  packet  frame and bit  And the term PDU  Protocol Data Unit  is used to refer to the packets in different layers of the OSI model  Thus PDU gives an abstract idea of the data packets  The PDU has a different meaning in different layers still we can use it as a common term  When we come to your question  we can call all of them by using the general term PDU  but if you want to call them specifically at a given layer   Data  PDU of Application  Presentation and Session Layers Segment  PDU of Transport Layer Packet  PDU of network Layer Frame  PDU of data-link Layer Bit  PDU of physical Layer  Here is a diagram  since a picture is worth a thousand words

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A packet is a general term for a formatted unit of data carried by a network  It is not necessarily connected to a specific OSI model layer    For example  in the Ethernet protocol on the physical layer  layer 1   the unit of data is called an  Ethernet packet   which has an Ethernet frame   layer 2  as its payload  But the unit of data of the Network layer  layer 3  is also called a  packet     A frame is also a unit of data transmission  In computer networking the term is only used in the context of the Data link layer  layer 2     Another semantical difference between packet and frame is that a frame envelops your payload with a header and a trailer  just like a painting in a frame  while a packet usually only has a header   But in the end they mean roughly the same thing and the distinction is used to avoid confusion and repetition when talking about the different layers

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Consider TCP over ATM  ATM uses 48 byte frames  but clearly TCP packets can be bigger than that  A frame is the chunk of data sent as a unit over the data link  Ethernet  ATM   A packet is the chunk of data sent as a unit over the layer above it  IP   If the data link is made specifically for IP  as Ethernet and WiFi are  these will be the same size and packets will correspond to frames

[networking] Difference between PACKETS and FRAMES

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