Metropolitan Area Networks

Metropolitan Area Networks
Introduction
As we have seen, a local area network covers a room, a building or a campus.
A metropolitan area network (MAN) covers a city or a region of a city. A wide area network (WAN) covers multiple cities, states, countries, and even the solar system.
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Metropolitan Area Network Basics

MANs borrow technologies from LANs and WANs. MANs support high-speed disaster recovery systems; realtime transaction backup systems; interconnections between corporate data centers and Internet service providers; and government, business, medicine, and education high-speed interconnections. MANs are almost exclusively fiber optic systems.
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Metropolitan Area Network Basics

MANs have very high transfer speeds.
MANs can recover from network faults very quickly (failover time).
MANs are often a ring topology (not a star-wired ring).

Some MANs can be provisioned dynamically.
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SONET versus Ethernet MANs

Most MANs are SONET network built of multiple rings (for failover purposes). SONET is well-proven but complex, fairly expensive, and cannot be provisioned dynamically.
SONET is based upon T-1 rates and does not fit nicely into 1 Mbps, 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps chunks, like Ethernet systems do. Ethernet MANs have high failover times.
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Wide Area Network Basics

WANs used to be characterized with slow, noisy lines. Today WANs are very high speed with very low error rates. WANs often follow a mesh topology.
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Wide Area Network Basics

A station is a device that interfaces a user to a network. A node is a device that allows one or more stations to access the physical network and is a transfer point for passing information through a network.
A node is often a computer, a router, or a telephone switch.

The subnet (old terminology) or physical network is the underlying connection of nodes and telecommunication links.
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Types of Network Structures

Circuit-switched network - a network in which a dedicated circuit is established between sender and receiver and all data passes over this circuit. The telephone system is a common example. The connection is dedicated until one party or another terminates the connection.
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Packet-switched network - a network in which all data messages are transmitted using fixed-sized packages, called packets. More efficient use of a telecommunications line since packets from multiple sources can share the medium.
One form of packet switched network is the datagram. With a datagram, each packet is on its own and may follow its own path.
Virtual circuit packet-switched network create a logical path through the subnet and all packets from one connection follow this path.
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Broadcast network - a network typically found in local area networks but occasionally found in wide area networks.
A workstation transmits its data and all other workstations connected to the network hear the data. Only the workstation(s) with the proper address will accept the data.
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Connection-oriented versus Connectionless network applications

The network structure is the underlying physical component of a network. What about the software or application that uses the network? A network application can be either connection-oriented or connectionless.
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A connection-oriented application requires both sender and receiver to create a connection before any data is transferred. Applications such as large file transfers and sensitive transactions such as banking and business are typically connection-oriented. A connectionless application does not create a connection first but simply sends the data. Electronic mail is a common example.
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A connection-oriented application can operate over both a circuit-switched network or a packet-switched network. A connectionless application can also operate over both a circuit-switched network or a packet-switched network but a packet-switched network may be more efficient.
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Routing
Each node in a WAN is a router that accepts an input packet, examines the destination address, and forwards the packet on to a particular telecommunications line. How does a router decide which line to transmit on? A router must select the one transmission line that will best provide a path to the destination and in an optimal manner. Often many possible routes exist between sender and receiver.
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Routing
The subnet with its nodes and telecommunication links is essentially a weighted network graph. The edges, or telecommunication links, between nodes have a cost associated with them.
The cost could be a delay cost, a queue size cost, a limiting speed, or simply a dollar amount for using that link.
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Routing
The routing method, or algorithm, chosen to move packets through a network should be: Optimal, so the least cost can be found. Fair, so all packets are treated equally. Robust, in case link or node failures occur and the network has to reroute traffic. Not too robust so that the chosen paths do not oscillate too quickly between troubled spots.
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Dijkstras Least Cost Routing Algorithm

Dijkstras least cost algorithm finds all possible paths between two locations.
By identifying all possible paths, it also identifies the least cost path. The algorithm can be applied to determine the least cost path between any pair of nodes.
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Flooding
When a packet arrives at a node, the node sends a copy of the packet out every link except the link the packet arrived on. Traffic grows very quickly when every node floods the packet.
To limit uncontrolled growth, each packet has a hop count. Every time a packet hops, its hop count is incremented. When a packets hop count equals a global hop limit, the packet is discarded.
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Centralized Routing
One routing table is kept at a central node.
Whenever a node needs a routing decision, the central node is consulted.

To survive central node failure, the routing table should be kept at a backup location. The central node should be designed to support a high amount of traffic consisting of routing requests.
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Distributed Routing
Each node maintains its own routing table.
No central site holds a global table. Somehow each node has to share information with other nodes so that the individual routing tables can be created. Possible problem with individual routing tables holding inaccurate information.
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Isolated Routing
Each node uses only local information to create its own routing table. Advantage - routing information does not have to be passed around the network. Disadvantage - a nodes individual routing information could be inaccurate, or out of date.
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Adaptive Routing versus Static Routing

With adaptive routing, routing tables can change to reflect changes in the network. Static routing does not allow the routing tables to change. Static routing is simpler but does not adapt to network congestion or failures.
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Network Congestion
When a network or a part of a network becomes so saturated with data packets that packet transfer is noticeably impeded, network congestion occurs. Preventive measures include providing backup nodes and links and preallocation of resources. To handle network congestion, you can perform buffer preallocation, choke packets, or permit systems.
Forward and backward explicit congestion control is also used.

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Quality of Service
Before making a connection, user requests how much bandwidth is needed, or if connection needs to be real-time.
Network checks to see if it can satisfy user request.
If user request can be satisfied, connection is established.

If a user does not need a high bandwidth or real-time, a simpler, cheaper connection is created.
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WANs In Action: Making Internet Connections

Home-to-Internet connection - modem and dial-up telephone provide circuit-switched subnet, while connection through the Internet is a packet-switched subnet. The application can be either a connection-oriented application or a connectionless application.
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WANs In Action: Making Internet Connections

A work-to-Internet connection would most likely require a broadcast subnet (LAN) with a connection to the Internet (packet-switched subnet).
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Metropolitan Area Networks

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Metropolitan Area Networks

Metropolitan Area Network Basics

Metropolitan Area Network Basics

MANs are often a ring topology (not a star-wired ring).

SONET versus Ethernet MANs

Wide Area Network Basics

Wide Area Network Basics

A node is often a computer, a router, or a telephone switch.

Types of Network Structures

Types of Network Structures

Types of Network Structures

Connection-oriented versus Connectionless network applications

Connection-oriented versus Connectionless network applications

Connection-oriented versus Connectionless network applications

Dijkstras Least Cost Routing Algorithm

Whenever a node needs a routing decision, the central node is consulted.

Adaptive Routing versus Static Routing

Forward and backward explicit congestion control is also used.

If user request can be satisfied, connection is established.

WANs In Action: Making Internet Connections

WANs In Action: Making Internet Connections

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