SRI RAMU DS

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF ECE, SSIT-TUMKUR
COMPUTER COMMUNICATION NETWORKS – EC6TH3
MODULE -3
TOPICS
Connecting Devices: Introduction, Hubs, link layer Switches, Virtual LANs:
Membership, Configuration.

Network Layer: Introduction, Network Layer services: Packetizing, Routing and

Forwarding, Packet Switching: Datagram Approach, Virtual Circuit Approach.

IPV4Addresses: Address Space, Classful Addressing, Classless Addressing, DHCP,

Network Address Resolution.

Textbook 1: B Forouzon, Data Communication & networking, Mcgraw hill-

2013, ISBN: 1-25-906475-3, 5th edition

Connecting Devices:
 We use connecting devices to connect hosts together to build a network or to
connect networks together to make an internet.
 Connecting devices can operate in different layers of the Internet model. We
discuss three kinds of connecting devices: hubs, link-layer switches, and
routers.

Hubs :
 A hub is a device that operates only in the physical layer.
 A repeater receives a signal and, before it becomes too weak or corrupted,
regenerates and retimes the original bit pattern. The repeater then sends the
refreshed signal.
 Figure 17.2 shows that when a packet from station A to station B arrives at the
hub, the signal representing the frame is regenerated to remove any possible
corrupting noise, but the hub forwards the packet from all outgoing ports except
the one from which the signal was received.
 A hub or a repeater is a physical-layer device. They do not have a link-layer
address and they do not check the link-layer address of the received frame. They
just regenerate the corrupted bits and send them out from every port.
 The figure definitely shows that a hub does not have a filtering capability; it does
not have the intelligence to find from which port the frame should be sent out.
Link-Layer Switches :
 A link-layer switch (or switch) operates in both the physical and the data-link
layers. As a physical-layer device, it regenerates the signal it receives. As a link-
layer device, the link-layer switch can check the MAC addresses (source and
destination) contained in the frame.
 A link-layer switch does not change the link-layer (MAC) addresses in a frame.
Filtering:
 A link-layer switch has filtering capability. It can check the destination address of
a frame and can decide from which outgoing port the frame should be sent.
 A link-layer switch has a table used in filtering decisionsA link-layer switch (or
switch) operates in both the physical and the data-link layers. As a physical-layer
device, it regenerates the signal it receives. As a link-layer device, the link-layer
switch can check the MAC addresses (source and destination) contained in the
frame.
 A link-layer switch does not change the link-layer (MAC) addresses in a frame.
 Example: In Figure 17.3, we have a LAN with four stations that are connected to
a link-layer switch. If a frame destined for station 71:2B:13:45:61:42 arrives at
port 1, the link-layer switch consults its table to find the departing port.
 According to its table, frames for 71:2B:13:45:61:42 should be sent out only
through port 2; therefore, there is no need for forwarding the frame through other
ports

Loop Problem
 Transparent switches work fine as long as there are no redundant switches in the
system. Systems administrators, however, like to have redundant switches (more
than one switch between a pair of LANs) to make the system more reliable.
 If a switch fails, another switch takes over until the failed one is repaired or
replaced. Redundancy can create loops in the system, which is very undesirable.
 Loops can be created only when two or more broadcasting LANs (those using
hubs, for example) are connected by more than one switch.

Spanning tree algorithm:

 To solve the looping problem, the IEEE specification requires that switches use
the spanning tree algorithm to create a loopless topology.
 The process for finding the spanning tree involves three steps:

1) Every switch has a built-in ID (normally the serial number, which is unique).
Each switch broadcasts this ID so that all switches know which one has the
smallest ID. The switch with the smallest ID is selected as the root switch
(root of the tree). We assume that switch S1 has the smallest ID. It is,
therefore, selected as the root switch.

2) The algorithm tries to find the shortest path (a path with the shortest cost) from
the root switch to every other switch or LAN. The shortest path can be found by
 examining the total cost from the root switch to the destination.

3) The combination of the shortest paths creates the shortest tree.

4) Based on the spanning tree, we mark the ports that are part of it, the forwarding
ports, which forward a frame that the switch receives. We also mark those ports that
are not part of the spanning tree, the blocking ports, which block the frames received
by the switch. Figure 17.8 shows the logical systems of LANs with forwarding ports
(solid lines) and blocking ports (broken lines).

 Note that there is only one path from any LAN to any other LAN in the spanning
tree system. This means there is only one path from one LAN to any other LAN.
 No loops are created.
Routers :
 A router is a three-layer device; it operates in the physical, data-link, and network
layers.
 As a physical-layer device, it regenerates the signal it receives. As a link-layer
device, the router checks the physical addresses (source and destination) contained
in the packet. As a network-layer device, a router checks the network-layer
addresses.
 A router can connect networks. In other words, a router is an internetworking
device; it connects independent networks to form an internetwork.

Example:
 The two LANs can be connected to form a larger LAN using 10 Gigabit
Ethernet technology that speeds up the connection to the Ethernet and the
connection to the organization server. A router then can connect the whole
system to the Internet.
 A router changes the link-layer addresses in a packet.

VIRTUAL LANS :
Figure 17.10 shows a switched LAN in an engineering firm in which nine stations
are grouped into three LANs that are connected by a switch
 But what would happen if the administrators needed to move two engineers from
the first group to the third group, to speed up the project being done by the third
group?
 The LAN configuration would need to be changed, The network technician must
rewire.

 Figure 17.11 shows the same switched LAN divided into VLANs. The whole idea
of VLAN technology is to divide a LAN into logical, instead of physical,
segments.
 A LAN can be divided into several logical LANs, called VLANs. Each VLAN is a
work group in the organization. If a person moves from one group to another,
there is no need to change the physical configuration.
 It is obvious that the problem in our previous example can easily be solved by
using VLANs. Moving engineers from one group to another through software is
easier than changing the configuration of the physical network.

Membership :

Interface Numbers
 Some VLAN vendors use switch interface numbers as a membership
characteristic.
 For example, the administrator can define that stations connecting to ports 1, 2, 3,
and 7 belong to VLAN 1, stations connecting to ports 4, 10, and 12 belong to
VLAN 2, and so on.

MAC Addresses
 Some VLAN vendors use the 48-bit MAC address as a membership
characteristic.
 For example, the administrator can stipulate that stations having MAC addresses
 E2:13:42:A1:23:34 and F2:A1:23:BC:D3:41 belong to VLAN 1.
IP Addresses:
 Some VLAN vendors use the 32-bit IP address (see Chapter 18) as a membership
characteristic.
 For example, the administrator can stipulate that stations having IP addresses
181.34.23.67, 181.34.23.72, 181.34.23.98, and 181.34.23.112 belong to VLAN 1.

Multicast IP Addresses
 Some VLAN vendors use the multicast IP address (see Chapter 21) as a
membership characteristic. Multicasting at the IP layer is now translated to
multicasting at the datalink layer.
Configuration: Stations are configured in one of three ways: manually,
semiautomatically, and automatically.

Manual Configuration
 In a manual configuration, the network administrator uses the VLAN software to
manually assign the stations into different VLANs at setup. Later migration from
one VLAN to another is also done manually.

Automatic Configuration
 In an automatic configuration, the stations are automatically connected or
disconnected from a VLAN using criteria defined by the administrator.

Semiautomatic Configuration
 A semiautomatic configuration is somewhere between a manual configuration and
an automatic configuration. Usually, the initializing is done manually, with
migrations done automatically.
Network Layer services :
 As the figure shows, the network layer is involved at the source host, destination
host, and all routers in the path (R2, R4, R5, and R7).
 At the source host (Alice), the network layer accepts a packet from a transport
layer, encapsulates the packet in a datagram, and delivers the packet to the data-
link layer.
 At the destination host (Bob), the datagram is decapsulated, and the packet is
extracted and delivered to the corresponding transport layer.

Packetizing :
 The source host receives the payload from an upper-layer protocol, adds a header
that contains the source and destination addresses and some other information that
is required by the network-layer protocol (as discussed later) and delivers the
packet to the data-link layer.
 The source is not allowed to change the content of the payload unless it is too
large for delivery and needs to be fragmented.
 The destination host receives the network-layer packet from its data-link layer,
decapsulates the packet, and delivers the payload to the corresponding upper-layer
 protocol.
 If the packet is fragmented at the source or at routers along the path, the network
layer is responsible for waiting until all fragments arrive, reassembling them, and
delivering them to the upper-layer protocol.

Forwarding :
 Forwarding can be defined as the action applied by each router when a packet
arrives at one of its interfaces.
 When a router receives a packet from one of its attached networks, it needs to
forward the packet to another attached network (in unicast routing) or to some
attached networks (in multicast routing).

 To make this decision, the router uses a piece of information in the packet header,
which can be the destination address or a label, to find the corresponding output
interface number in the forwarding table.

PACKET SWITCHING :
 Although in data communication switching techniques are divided into two broad
categories, circuit switching and packet switching, only packet switching is used
at the network layer because the unit of data at this layer is a packet.
 At the network layer, a message from the upper layer is divided into manageable
packets and each packet is sent through the network.
 The source of the message sends the packets one by one; the destination of the
message receives the packets one by one.
Datagram Approach: Connectionless Service
 When the network layer provides a connectionless service, each packet traveling
in the Internet is an independent entity; there is no relationship between packets
belonging to the same message.
 The switches in this type of network are called routers.
 A packet belonging to a message may be followed by a packet belonging to the
same message or to a different message.
 Each packet is routed based on the information contained in its header: source and
destination addresses.
 The destination address defines where it should go; the source address defines
where it comes from.
 Figure 18.4 shows the forwarding process in a router in this case. We have used
symbolic addresses such as A and B

Virtual-Circuit Approach: Connection-Oriented Service

 There is a relationship between all packets belonging to a message
 A virtual connection is set up that defines the path for the datagrams.
 After connection setup, All the datagrams follow the same path.
 In this type of service, not only must the packet contain the source and destination
addresses, it must also contain a flow label, a virtual circuit identifier that defines
the virtual path the packet should follow.

 Figure 18.6 shows the idea. In this case, the forwarding decision is based on the
value of the label, or virtual circuit identifier.
 To create a connection-oriented service, a three-phase process is used: setup, data
transfer, and teardown.
 In the setup phase, the source and destination addresses of the sender and receiver
are used to make table entries for the connection-oriented service.
 Data transfer occurs between these two phases.
 In the teardown phase, the source and destination inform the router to delete the
corresponding entries.
QUESTION BANK