Networking Basics - routing fundamentals and subnets

A protocol is a set of rules that determines how computers communicate with each other across networks. Computers communicate with one another by exchanging data messages. To accept and act on these messages, computers must have definitions of how a message is interpreted. Examples of messages include those establishing a connection to a remote machine, e-mail messages, and files transferred over a network. A protocol describes the following:
The format that a message must conform to
The way in which computers must exchange a message within the context of a particular activity