At each level N, two entities at the communicating devices (layer N peers) exchange protocol data units (PDUs) by means of a layer N protocol. Each PDU contains a payload, called the service data unit (SDU), along with protocol-related headers and/or footers.
Data processing by two communicating OSI-compatible devices is done as such:

1. The data to be transmitted is composed at the topmost layer of the transmitting device (layer N) into a protocol data unit (PDU).
2. The PDU is passed to layer N-1, where it is known as the service data unit (SDU).
3. At layer N-1 the SDU is concatenated with a header, a footer, or both, producing a layer N-1 PDU. It is then passed to layer N-2.
4. The process continues until reaching the lowermost level, from which the data is transmitted to the receiving device.
5. At the receiving device the data is passed from the lowest to the highest layer as a series of SDUs while being successively stripped from each layer's header and/or footer, until reaching the topmost layer, where the last of the data is consumed.

Some orthogonal aspects, such as management and security, involve all of the layers (See ITU-T X.800 Recommendation^[4]). These services are aimed at improving the CIA triad - confidentiality, integrity, and availability - of the transmitted data. In practice, the availability of a communication service is determined by the interaction between network design and network management protocols. Appropriate choices for both of these are needed to protect against denial of service

Layer 1: Physical Layer

The physical layer has the following major functions:

• It defines the electrical and physical specifications of the data connection. It defines the relationship between a device and a physical transmission medium (e.g., a copper or fiber optical cable, radio frequency). This includes the layout of pins, voltages, line impedance, cable specifications, signal timing and similar characteristics for connected devices and frequency (5 GHz or 2.4 GHz etc.) for wireless devices.
• It defines transmission mode i.e. simplex, half duplex, full duplex.
• It defines the network topology as bus, mesh, or ring being some of the most common.
• Encoding of bits is done in this layer.
• It determines whether the encoded bits will be transmitted by baseband (digital) or broadband (analog) signaling.
• It mostly deals with raw data.

The physical layer of Parallel SCSI operates in this layer, as do the physical layers of Ethernet and other local-area networks, such as Token Ring, FDDI, ITU-T G.hn, and IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), as well as personal area networks such as Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4.

Layer 2: Data Link Layer

The data link layer provides node-to-node data transfer—a link between two directly connected nodes. It detects and possibly corrects errors that may occur in the physical layer. It, among other things, defines the protocol to establish and terminate a connection between two physically connected devices. It also defines the protocol for flow control between them.
IEEE 802 divides the data link layer into two sublayers:^[5]

• Media Access Control (MAC) layer - responsible for controlling how devices in a network gain access to medium and permission to transmit it.
• Logical Link Control (LLC) layer - responsible for identifying Network layer protocols and then encapsulating them and controls error checking and frame synchronization.

The MAC and LLC layers of IEEE 802 networks such as 802.3 Ethernet, 802.11 Wi-Fi, and 802.15.4 ZigBee, operate at the data link layer.
The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) is a data link layer that can operate over several different physical layers, such as synchronous and asynchronous serial lines.
The ITU-T G.hn standard, which provides high-speed local area networking over existing wires (power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables), includes a complete data link layer that provides both error correction and flow control by means of a selective-repeat sliding-window protocol.

Layer 3: Network Layer

The network layer provides the functional and procedural means of transferring variable length data sequences (called datagrams) from one node to another connected to the same network. It translates logical network address into physical machine address. A network is a medium to which many nodes can be connected, on which every node has an address and which permits nodes connected to it to transfer messages to other nodes connected to it by merely providing the content of a message and the address of the destination node and letting the network find the way to deliver the message to the destination node, possibly routing it through intermediate nodes. If the message is too large to be transmitted from one node to another on the data link layer between those nodes, the network may implement message delivery by splitting the message into several fragments at one node, sending the fragments independently, and reassembling the fragments at another node. It may, but need not, report delivery errors.
Message delivery at the network layer is not necessarily guaranteed to be reliable; a network layer protocol may provide reliable message delivery, but it need not do so.
A number of layer-management protocols, a function defined in the management annex, ISO 7498/4, belong to the network layer. These include routing protocols, multicast group management, network-layer information and error, and network-layer address assignment. It is the function of the payload that makes these belong to the network layer, not the protocol that carries them

Layer 4: Transport Layer

The transport layer provides the functional and procedural means of transferring variable-length data sequences from a source to a destination host via one or more networks, while maintaining the quality of service functions.
An example of a transport-layer protocol in the standard Internet stack is Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), usually built on top of the Internet Protocol (IP).
The transport layer controls the reliability of a given link through flow control, segmentation/desegmentation, and error control. Some protocols are state- and connection-oriented. This means that the transport layer can keep track of the segments and retransmit those that fail. The transport layer also provides the acknowledgement of the successful data transmission and sends the next data if no errors occurred. The transport layer creates packets out of the message received from the application layer. Packetizing is a process of dividing the long message into smaller messages.
OSI defines five classes of connection-mode transport protocols ranging from class 0 (which is also known as TP0 and provides the fewest features) to class 4 (TP4, designed for less reliable networks, similar to the Internet). Class 0 contains no error recovery, and was designed for use on network layers that provide error-free connections. Class 4 is closest to TCP, although TCP contains functions, such as the graceful close, which OSI assigns to the session layer. Also, all OSI TP connection-mode protocol classes provide expedited data and preservation of record boundaries. Detailed characteristics of TP0-4 classes are shown in the following table

Layer 5: Session Layer

The session layer controls the dialogues (connections) between computers. It establishes, manages and terminates the connections between the local and remote application. It provides for full-duplex, half-duplex, or simplex operation, and establishes checkpointing, adjournment, termination, and restart procedures. The OSI model made this layer responsible for graceful close of sessions, which is a property of the Transmission Control Protocol, and also for session checkpointing and recovery, which is not usually used in the Internet Protocol Suite. The session layer is commonly implemented explicitly in application environments that use remote procedure calls.

Layer 6: Presentation Layer

The presentation layer establishes context between application-layer entities, in which the application-layer entities may use different syntax and semantics if the presentation service provides a big mapping between them. If a mapping is available, presentation service data units are encapsulated into session protocol data units, and passed down the protocol stack.
This layer provides independence from data representation (e.g., encryption) by translating between application and network formats. The presentation layer transforms data into the form that the application accepts. This layer formats and encrypts data to be sent across a network. It is sometimes called the syntax layer.^[8]
The original presentation structure used the Basic Encoding Rules of Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1), with capabilities such as converting an EBCDIC-coded text file to an ASCII-coded file, or serialization of objects and other data structures from and to XML.

Layer 7: Application Layer

The application layer is the OSI layer closest to the end user, which means both the OSI application layer and the user interact directly with the software application. This layer interacts with software applications that implement a communicating component. Such application programs fall outside the scope of the OSI model. Application-layer functions typically include identifying communication partners, determining resource availability, and synchronizing communication. When identifying communication partners, the application layer determines the identity and availability of communication partners for an application with data to transmit. When determining resource availability, the application layer must decide whether sufficient network or the requested communication exists. In synchronizing communication, all communication between applications requires cooperation that is managed by the application layer. This layer supports application and end-user processes. Communication partners are identified, quality of service is identified, user authentication and privacy are considered, and any constraints on data syntax are identified. Everything at this layer is application-specific.