Computers and networking devices have become all the more important
in day to day life today. With internet being the most important medium
of communication and data transfer, computers have become all the more
valuable. Not just computers there are plenty of devices right from
the simplest micro controllers to handheld programmers,
to serial ports to USB cables, serial device servers, terminal servers
etc that help in storing, transferring data across different machines,
storage devices and also external storage mediums. Some of these
protocols that are used to program basic electronic circuits that help
in data communication are discussed here:
Serial communication
Serial communication protocols enable devices to consume serial data
from a nine pin port, encapsulate the data in a TCP packet and transmit
it through an Ethernet network via an configurable IP address and port
number. The biggest advantage in this mode of communication is the
reduction in the number of wires used to connect portable memory
devices like flash drives. Also these serial file transfer protocols
are secured and does not attribute to any data loss.
Parallel communication
The communication protocol is used in connecting devices like
modems, printers, data collection terminals and other automatic
equipment to PC's where data transfer does not happen in a serial
fashion and data is transmitted to numerous receivers in parallel.
These protocols are also secured with numerous points of reception so
that even if at one receiver point the data pocket gets lost, it can be
retrieved from other centers.
In either of these protocols, the data transfer could be synchronous
or asynchronous in nature. Programmable software can use either of
these protocols to initiate data transfer between the PC and devices in
a secured fashion keeping information secured and intact. Both this
approach are employed based on requirement.