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Network Visualizer v4.15

ChrisCloud · Learning lab

Walk through the OSI reference modelOSI (reference model)A teaching model for how data moves from physical signals up to applications.

L7 Application — HTTP/DNSL6 Presentation — TLS/encodingL5 Session — conversation/state (teaching layer)L4 Transport — TCP/UDPL3 Network — IP routingL2 Data link — Ethernet/Wi‑Fi framesL1 Physical — bits on wire/radio
Real systems blur boundaries (especially L5–L7). (teaching stack) for three concrete stories: a flower shop with a website and on‑prem storage, a “cat pictures” scale‑out archive, and this page loading in your browser. Use Step or Play journey to light up layers from physical toward application — the direction bits travel up the stack on the receiving host. The layer legend sits just above the stack.

FlashArray / FlashBlade · protocol labs

Scenario

Status
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Elapsed —
Where —
Active (current step) Already traversed Not yet in this pass

How to read this: OSI is a model, not a single recipe. Real systems bundle TLS, HTTP, and TCP in ways that blur layers 5–7. Storage protocols (NFS, iSCSI, S3 over HTTPS) still sit on TCP/IP and Ethernet underneath. Arrows on certification exams often go “top‑down” on the sender and “bottom‑up” on the receiver — here we animate receive‑side L1 → L7 so you can see how raw bits become a web page or file.