OSI Layer 7: Application Layer

The Application Layer is the one which interacts with the user. A Software application that implements a communicating component, uses the OSI Application Layer to establish the application’s communication. For example a word processor that does not have communications capabilities, would not be concerned with the OSI Application Layer. On the other hand, an application with communication capabilities (e.g a Web Browser), has to implement the OSI Application Layer standards.

Examples of Layer 7 Applications
• Telnet
• FTP
• HTTP
• SMTP
• WWW Browsers
• SNMP