The Presentation Layer, which is also known as Layer 6 in the OSI Model, has the important role of translating, encrypting, and compressing data in order to ensure that it is effectively and accurately comprehended by the application layer.
By acting as an intermediary between the network and the application, it plays a crucial role in facilitating seamless communication between different systems. Its main purpose is to convert data from one system into a format that can be easily interpreted and utilized by another system, regardless of any variations in their respective formats. Not only does this layer ensure that the data is presented in a format that the application can work with, but it also performs essential data transformations such as encryption and compression.
Within the Presentation Layer, there are several crucial functions that it performs, including data translation, data encryption and decryption, data compression and decompression, data formatting and syntax, character encoding, and the handling of multimedia data.
Protocols such as TLS/SSL, which stands for Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer, are employed on the Presentation Layer. In the Presentation Layer (Layer 7), there are several standard formats that are commonly used such as JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group), GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), PNG (Portable Network Graphics), XDR (External Data Representation), ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), and EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code).