TCP Connection orientation

[i-green]

I have been lead to believe that packets of information can take differing routes depending on path determination. However when I read about TCP being a connection orientated protocol the text says it creates virtual circuits. Are these virtual circuits for the whole data transmission or are they for simple message acknowledgements? The creation of virtual ciruits confuses me with relation to packets taking different routes.

[MickPhelps]

TCP is connection oriented, but it doesn't create VCs the way that Frame Relay or ATM does.

Each end of the TCP connection (the client and server) recognize that after a connection is established, the Process-Application (PA) layer can send any data it needs to over this connection knowing that the data will arrive at the other side or notified if the data cannot be delivered.

The actual datagrams that contain the PA data can take different paths depending on routing, delay, etc... Each datagram is numbered, and the receiver will ACKnowledge that it was received, or request retransmissions of datagrams that were skipped (based on higher sequence numbers of received datagrams).

Does this help?

Mick.

[i-green]

Thanks Mick that's cleared it up.