During the past two decades there has been a tremendous increase in the numbers and sizes of networks. Many of the networks, however, were built using different implementations of hardware and software. As a result, many of the networks were incompatible and it became difficult for networks using different specifications to communicate with each other. To address this problem, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) researched many network schemes. The ISO recognized that there was a need to create a network model that would help network builders implement networks that could communicate and work together (interoperability) and therefore, released the Open System InterConnection (OSI) reference model in 1984.