What does the session layer of the OSI model manage?

The session layer of the OSI model, which is the fifth layer, is primarily responsible for managing and controlling the sessions between computers. This includes establishing, maintaining, and terminating connections between communicating systems. The session layer provides mechanisms for managing dialogues between applications, ensuring that data can be sent and received in an organized manner.

In the context of user connections, the session layer helps facilitate communication, handling tasks like ensuring that sessions are properly established, synchronized, and closed. It allows users to interact with each other over a network without needing to manage the details of the underlying transport and network layers.

While data encryption, transfer reliability, and network address allocation play critical roles in communication, they are handled by other layers of the OSI model. Data encryption is typically managed at the presentation layer, data transfer reliability is the responsibility of the transport layer, and network address allocation is managed at the network layer. Each layer has a distinct function, and the session layer is specifically focused on managing user sessions.