Protocols are a system of rules. In computer networks, we can refere to them as:
A set of rules governing the exchange or transmission of data.
There are a lot of network communication protocols. The most famous being IP, SMTP, TCP, HTTP, DNS etc.
Those protocols can be separated in roughly two category:
- Protocols developed to address different aspects of network communication
- Protocols developed to address the same aspect of network communication but in a different way or for a specific use-case
Protocols for Different Aspects of Communication
In order to communicate on the network, we need a set of syntactical rules that govern the structure of the message: in what order should the content of a message be sent to be understood by the receiver? We may also want to control the flow and the order of the messages. We can call this the message transfer rules of how communication should be conducted.
In this first category we can compare TCP and HTTP: they are two protocols that address different aspects of communication. TCP assures the transfer of messages between applications while HTTP is about the structure of those messages.
Protocols for Same Aspect of Communication in Different Way
In the second category, we can group protocol that relates to the same aspect of communication (i.e. the flow and order of the message) but use different sets of rules, or protocols, to achieve it.
In this category, TCP and UDP would be a good examples of two protocs that address the same aspect of communication: the transfer of message between applications, but in different ways.