Which layer of the OSI model is responsible for the establishment, management, and termination of connections?

The session layer is specifically designed to manage the establishment, maintenance, and termination of connections between applications. It facilitates the ongoing communication and coordination of dialog between two parties, ensuring that the data being transferred is properly organized, synchronized, and managed throughout the session. This can include maintaining sessions that allow for control flow and ensuring that data is correctly handled at both ends of the communication.

In contrast, the transport layer is primarily focused on the end-to-end communication between devices, ensuring that data is transferred reliably and in the correct order, but it does not handle the setup and teardown of the connections themselves. The data link layer deals with the physical connection and frame transmission between directly connected devices, while the application layer focuses on providing network services directly to end-user applications, rather than managing the low-level details of connections.