Unit 18

Switching

Acknowledgments: These slides were originally developed by Prof. Jean Walrand for EE122. The past and current EE122 instructors including Profs. Kevin Fall, Abhay Parekh, Shyam Parekh, and Adam Wolisz have contributed to their evolution.

TOC: Switching & Forwarding

Why? Switching Techniques Switch Characteristics Switch Examples Switch Architectures Summary

TOC Switching

Why?
Direct vs. Switched Networks:
Single link n links

Direct
Direct Network Limitations:
Shared medium

Switches

Switched

Distance (coordination delay; propagation limitation) Number of hosts (collisions; shared bandwidth; address tables) Single link technology (cannot mix optical, wireless, ) O(n2) links

Point-to-point links

Internetworking: Externality gain at low cost

TOC Switching Why?

Techniques
Circuit-Switching (e.g., Telephone net.) Packet-Switching
Datagram (e.g., IP, Ethernet) Virtual Circuits (e.g., MPLS, ATM) Source Routing

Comparison

TOC Switching Techniques

Circuit-Switching
Mechanism:

Link divided into fixed, independent circuits

(Typical Implementation: Time-Space-Time Switch)

Circuit Switch Connection list Time scale: connection

(e.g., TDM, WDM)

Features:
Packets not switched independently (establish circuit before sending data) Dedicated path and resources from source to destination Setup time; low delays and guaranteed resources thereafter
TOC Switching Techniques Circuit

Packet-Switching
Mechanism:
Whole link shared by all packets

Packet Switch

Features:
Data separated into packets Switching decision (output port) for each individual packet Statistical multiplexing: Sum of peak rates may exceed link bandwidth (as long as mean does not)
TOC Switching Techniques Packet

PS - Datagram
General idea: no connection establishment, but each packet contains enough info to specify destination Switches contain forwarding tables (but no perconnection state) Forwarding tables contain info on which outgoing port to use for each destination Two types of addressing:
Layer 2 or Layer 3

TOC Switching Techniques Packet - Datagram

Layer 2 (e.g., Ethernet)

Flat address space (no structure) Forwarding table: Exact match of destination L2 address
a b c d e f 1 4 3 2 2 2 3 c a b c d e f 4 f 1 1 1 2 3 4

b e|b| To From

TOC Switching Techniques Packet Datagram L2

Layer 3 (e.g., IP)

L3-network (e.g., IP)
Topological structure match prefix Either fixed prefix length or longest match
11010001 1101 A 11010101 11001101 110011 C 10100111 10100000 11001100 B 11010000 B Fixed Longest D A Other 11001000 C

E.g. 1 E.g. 2 E.g. 3

01000000 11100000

11001001
TOC Switching Techniques Packet Datagram L3

Layer 3 (e.g., IP)

11011001 matches 4 bits at A, 1 at B, 3 at C 4 bits at A A = EM A = LPM

E.g. 1

11010001 1101 A 11010101 11001101 110011 C

10100111 10100000 11001100 B 11010000 B Fixed Longest D A Other 11001000 C 11011001 01000000 11100000

11001001
TOC Switching Techniques Packet Datagram L3

Layer 3 (e.g., IP)

E.g. 2 11001001 matches 5 bits at A, 1 at B, 7 at C C = LPM

11010001 1101 A 11010101 11001101 110011 C

10100111 10100000 11001100 B 11010000 B Fixed A Longest D Other 11001000 C 11001001 01000000 11100000

11001001
TOC Switching Techniques Packet Datagram L3

Layer 3 (e.g., IP)

01100101 matches 0 bit at A B 0 bit at B, 0 at C, 2 at D E.g. 3 D = LPM 10100111 1101 A 11010101 11001101 110011 C 01100101
TOC Switching Techniques Packet Datagram L3

11010001

10100000 11001100 B 11010000 B Fixed Longest D A Other 11001000 C

01000000 11100000

11001001

PS Virtual Circuit
Connection setup establishes a path through switches
A virtual circuit ID (VCI) identifies path Uses packet switching, with packets containing VCI VCIs are often indices into per-switch connection tables; change at each hop Statistical multiplexing is typically used
VC1 VC2 1 4 3 VC1 VC2 2 VC1 In, VC Out, VC 1, 1 4, 1 1, 2 4, 3 2, 1 4, 2
TOC Switching Techniques Packet VC

4 VC1

VC3 2 VC1

3 VC2

Source Routing
Each packet specifies the sequence of routers (or of output ports) from source to destination

source 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

4 3 4

1 2 3 4

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

4 3 4

4 3 4

TOC Switching Techniques Source Routing

Comparison
Datagram Virtual circuit switching low flexible flexible low Circuit switching none low yes low

Forwarding cost Bandwidth utilization Resource reservations Robustness*

high high none high

*The idea is that in case of failure, circuit and VC are lost; datagram routing can adapt after routing update .
TOC Switching Techniques Comparison

Characteristics of Switch/Router
Ports
Fast Ethernet, OC-3, ATM,

Protocols
ST, Link Agg., VLAN, OSPF, RIP, BGP, VPN, Load Balancing, WRED, WFQ

Performance
Throughput, Reliability, Power,

TOC Switching Characteristics

Examples
Juniper M160 Cisco GSR Cisco 7600 Cisco catalyst 6500 Extreme Summit Foundry ServerIron

TOC Switching Examples

Cisco GSR - 12416

WAN Router Large throughput; SONET links Up to 16 line cards at 10 Gbps each Cisco GSR 12416 19 Crossbar Fabric Line Cards: 1-port OC-192c 4-port OC48c Many others (ATM, Ethernet, ) 6ft

2ft

TOC Switching Examples GSR

Juniper M160
WAN Router Large throughput; SONET links Crossbar Fabric Line Cards: Juniper M160 1-port OC-192c 19 4-port OC48c Many others Capacity: (ATM, Ethernet, )
3ft

80Gb/s Power: 2.6kW

2.5ft
TOC Switching Examples M160

Cisco 7600
MAN-WAN Router Up to 128 Gbps with Crossbar Fabric 10Mbps 10Gbps LAN Interfaces OC-3 to OC-48 SONET Interfaces MPLS, WFQ, LLQ, WRED, Traffic Shaping

TOC Switching Examples 7600

Cisco cat 6500

From LAN to Access 48 to 576 10/100 Ethernet Interfaces 10 GE, OC-3, OC-12, OC-48, ATM QoS, ACL Load Balancing; VPN Up to 128Gbps (with crossbar) L4-7 Switching VLAN IP Telephony (E1, T1, inline-power Ethernet) SNMP, RMON

TOC Switching Examples Cat6k

Extreme - Summit
48 10/100 ports 2 GE (SX, LX, or LX-70) 17.5Gbps non-blocking 10.1 Mpps Wire speed L2 Wire speed L3 static or RIP OSPF, DVRMP, PIM,

TOC Switching Examples Summit

Foundry - ServerIron
Server Load Balancing Transparent Cache Switching Firewall Load Balancing Global Server Load Balancing Extended Layer 4-7 functionality including URL-, Cookie-, and SSL Session ID-based switching Secure Network Address Translation (NAT) and Port address translation (PAT)

TOC Switching Examples ServerIron

Architectures
Generic Architecture First Generation Second Generation Third Generation Input Functions Output Functions Interconnection Designs
OUT IN VOB Combined IN/OUT
TOC Switching Architectures

Generic
Input and output interfaces are connected through an interconnect A interconnect can be implemented by
Shared memory
low capacity routers (e.g., PC-based routers)
input interface output interface

Interconnect

Shared bus
Medium capacity routers

Point-to-point (switched) bus

High capacity routers

TOC Switching Architectures Generic

First Generation
Shared Backplane CPU
Route Table Buffer Memory

CP I Line U nte rfa ce M em or y

Line Interface
MAC

Line Interface
MAC

Line Interface
MAC

Typically < 0.5Gbps aggregate capacity Limited by rate of shared memory

Slide by Nick McKeown
TOC Switching Architectures First

Second Generation
CPU
Route Table Buffer Memory

Typically < 5Gb/s aggregate capacity Limited by shared bus

Line Card Buffer Memory Fwding Cache

MAC

Line Card Buffer Memory Fwding Cache

MAC

Line Card Buffer Memory Fwding Cache

MAC

Slide by Nick McKeown

TOC Switching Architectures Second

Third Generation
Switched Backplane

Line Card
Li In CP n e t Uer fa ce M em or y

CPU Card
Routing Table

Line Card Local Buffer Memory

Fwding Table
MAC

Local Buffer Memory

Fwding Table
MAC

Typically < 50Gbps aggregate capacity

Slide by Nick McKeown

TOC Switching Architectures Third

Input Functions
Packet forwarding: decide to which output interface to forward each packet based on the information in packet header
examine packet header lookup in forwarding table update packet header

TOC Switching Architectures Input Functions

Output Functions
Buffer management: decide when and which packet to drop Scheduler: decide when and which packet to transmit
Buffer
Scheduler

TOC Switching Architectures Output Functions

Output Functions (2)

Packet classification: map each packet to a predefined flow/connection (for datagram forwarding)
use to implement more sophisticated services (e.g., QoS)

Flow: a subset of packets between any two endpoints in the network

flow 1 1 Classifier flow 2 flow n Buffer management Scheduler

TOC Switching Architectures Output Functions

Output Queued
Only output interfaces store packets Advantage
Easy to design algorithms: only one congestion point

input interface

output interface

Disadvantage
Requires an output speedup Ro/C = N, where N is the number of interfaces not feasible for large N
Backplane

RO
TOC Switching Architectures Output Queued

Input Queues
Only input interfaces store packets Advantages
Easy to build Simple algorithms
input interface output interface

Disadvantages
HOL Blocking In practice: Speedup of 2 suffices

Backplane

RO

TOC Switching Architectures Input Queued

Note: Head-of-line Blocking

The cell at the head of an input queue cannot be transferred, thus blocking the following cells
Cannot be transferred because of HOL blocking Cannot be transferred because of output contention

Input 1 Input 2 Input 3

Output 1 Output 2 Output 3

Being transferred
TOC Switching Architectures Input Queued: HOL

Virtual Output Buffers

OUT buffers at each input port Complexity: Matching Problem Full throughput algorithm Good Heuristic

Crossbar

Note: Figure from Prof. Varaiyas notes for EE228b

TOC Switching Architectures VOB

VOB: Full Throughput

Maximum Weighted Matching:

A = 14 B = 11

C = 15 D = 10

B + C > A + D => Serve (B, C)

TOC Switching Architectures VOB: Full Throughput

VOB: Good Heuristic i-SLIP

Inputs request permission to send from outputs Outputs grant permissions to inputs (round-robin) Inputs accept permissions (round-robin)

Request 3 1 2 2 1 3

Grant

Accept

Iter

Last Accept

Last Grant

TOC Switching Architectures VOB: iSLIP

Combined IN/OUT
Both input and output interfaces store packets Advantages input interface output interface
Easy to built
Utilization 1 can be achieved with limited input/output speedup (<= 2)
Backplane

Disadvantages
Harder to design algorithms
Two congestion points Need to design flow control
RO C

TOC Switching Architectures IN/OUT

Summary
Switching needed for big networks Internetworking externality Circuit Packet VC: QoS possible Packet Datagram
L2: Limited by flat address space L3:
Exact Match: Easy lookup less efficient Longest Prefix Match

Switch functions: control and data Different Architectures:

cost vs. performance
TOC Switching Summary