Transmission Control Protocol (also known as TCP) is a core protocol of the Internet Protocol Suite. It operates at a higher level than its compatriot, Internet Protocol (also known as IP). The two main concerns of TCP are the two end systems – a web browser and a web server, for example. TCP provides the delivery of a stream of bytes from a program from one computer to another computer. TCP is also in charge of controlling size, flow control, the rate of data exchange, and network traffic congestion.
IP is a protocol used for data communication across a packet switched internetwork (that is, an internetwork in which all transmitted data is grouped together). As with TCP, it also uses the Internet Protocol Suite. It is the primary protocol in the Internet Layer of the Internet Protocol Suite. Its main task is to deliver distinguished protocol datagrams (also known as packets) from the source host to the destination host based only their addresses. As such, IP defines addressing methods and structures for the encapsulation of the packets.