CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW OF LOCAL AREA NETWORKS ver since ancient times people have continuously devised new techniques for com- ‘municating their ideas, needs, and desires to others. Thus many forms of increasingly sophisticated and, in general, more complex communication systems have appeared over the years. The basic motivations behind each new system were either to improve the trans- mission fidelity, to increase the data rate so that more information could be sent, or to increase the transmission distance between relay stations. ‘Along with the development of faster and higher-capacity transmission systems, the past several decades have witnessed a phenomenal growth in the computer industry. As advances in integrated-circuit technology have allowed computers to become smaller, less expensive, more powerful, and widely available, people have become increasingly interested in connecting them together to form networks. Today communication networks have become an essential worldwide infrastructure, particularly for services such as e-mail and Internet access. ‘Networks are traditionally divided into the following three broad categories, as Fig. 1.1 illustrates: 1. Local area networks (LANs) interconnect users in a localized area, such as a room, a department, a building, an office or factory complex, or a campus. Here the word campus refers to any group of buildings that are within reasonable walking distance of each other. For example, it could be the buildings of a research and development organization or of a university complex. LANs usually are owned, used, and operated by a single organization. 2. Metropolitan area networks (MANS) span a larger area than a LAN. This could range from interconnections between buildings covering several blocks within a city or2. CHAPTER | OVERVIEW OF LOCAL AREA NETWORKS [National WAN MAN: FIGURE ‘The three basic categories of networks include local, metropolitan, and wide area networks,CHAPTER | OVERVIEW OF LOCAL AREA NETWORKS 3 ‘could encompass an entire city and the metropolitan area surrounding it. There is, also some means of interconnecting the MAN resources with communication entities located in both LANs and wide area networks. MANs are owned and operated by ‘many organizations. 3. Wide area networks (WANs) span a large geographical area. The links can range from connections between switching facilities in neighboring cities to long-haul terrestrial ‘or undersea transmission lines running across a country or between countries. WANS invariably are owned and operated by many transmission service providers. In this book we will concentrate on LANs since these types of networks play a ‘major role in our lives at both work and home. LANs have found applications in every conceivable area where humans work and interact, including businesses, educational institutes, research organizations, medical facilities, government buildings, warehouses, and stock exchanges. In addition, wireless LANs are used in homes and small offices for voice and data transfer among computing and communication devices, such as personal computers, cordless telephones, a personal digital assistant (PDA), computer games, and other portable devices. Another application of LANs in a home is the interconnec- tion of smart devices that allow users to control and monitor events in consumer-based appliances, home electronics, and home security systems. LANs arose from the growing implementation of powerful desktop workstations. ‘Since these workstations provide low-cost computing capabilities, they quickly came into ‘widespread use. The basic drive for developing LANs was the desire to interconnect these relatively inexpensive workstations and desktop computers with each other and with ‘more expensive resources, such as high-quality printers, disk storage systems, central files, and databases on a shared basis. The goal in these network developments was to provide high-speed, reliable interconnections between localized computing elements with an emphasis on simplicity and the low cost of the transmission links. Since these elements are located in a moderately sized geographical area, the distances range from 1 m (meter) to nominally 1 km (kilometer). Extensions to remote clusters of elements or other LAN segments located several kilometers away also are possible. In addition to being configured as a shared network, a LAN may be set up as a switched network, where a switch replaces a passive central distribution device. As later chapters describe, this increases the capacity and flexibility of a local network since ‘a LAN switch can make intelligent decisions as to where to send a message and can segment user traffic on the LAN. With the emergence of the Internet and the widespread usage of personal computers both at home and in businesses, the needs arose to interconnect diverse LANs, to provide users on LANs with access to MAN and WAN resources, and to segment large LANs into manageable groups of devices. For example, an organization may have various types of LANs at different locations which need to be linked. Furthermore, a corporate site may have different types of LANs that handle a variety of needs (e.g., engineering, ‘manufactyring, and marketing) or that segregate departmental functions for security reasons (e.g., keeping payroll records or corporate legal issues confidenti In this chapter Sec. 1.1 defines basic LAN terminology. Next Sec. 1.2 gives a top-level overview of standards activities related to LANs. We then look at how LANs operate in Sec. 1.3, which includes the clienU/server concept, connection schemes, and4. CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW OF LOCAL AREA NETWORKS, transmission methods. This is followed by descriptions of fundamental LAN topologies in Sec. 1.4. To help understand the motivations behind constructing LANs, Sec. 1.5 de- scribes some general applications for these networks. Finally Sec. 1.6 gives an overview of the various chapters in the text, Sec. 1.7 points to further supplementary resource material, and Sec. 1.8 lists the resources available on the website for the book. 1.1 BASIC LAN TERMINOLOGY A basic item that appears throughout any communications book is the prefix used in metric units for designating parameters such as length, speed, and data rates. Although many of these are well known, a few may be new to some readers. As a handy reference, Table 1.1 lists standard prefixes, their symbols, and their magnitudes, which range in size from 10° to 10-™. As an example, a data rate of 1 x 10? bits per second (bps) = 1 Gbps (gigabits per second). The three highest and lowest designations are not especially ‘common in communication systems (yet!) but are included in Table 1.1 for completeness. Figure 1.2 shows an example of a shared LAN. Let us first look at some termi- nology used in describing a typical shared network and its elements. In this case all the network devices are attached to a shared transmission medium. This means that a ‘message sent from one device can be received by all the other devices that are attached to the same medium. The end devices that wish to communicate on the LAN may be multipurpose computers, workstations, personal computers, servers. or other equipment, such as printers, fax machines, and data storage elements. The computing devices are generally called stations. The points where stations and other devices connect to the TABLE 1 Metric prefixes, their symbols, and their magnitudes Prefix Symbol_-Magnitude you OY 10 zeta. z 1" om E 108 peta: P 10!5 ee t 10? isa G 1 meg | M 1 kilo. k 10 ‘centi- e 107 ‘milli- m 10° micro- ” 10-* ano 2 10 ‘pico- P 10-8 femto- f 10-5 atto- a 10" Zepto- z 10-# yyorto- y 10-*LL BASICLAN TERMINOLOGY 5 Shared = medium MAU, NIC resides in the laptop. Station Station network are referred to as nodes. A node can belong to either a media access device on & LAN cable or a switching device. Note that some devices, for example, switches and routers, can have more than one network connection so that they have a number ‘of nodes associated with them. The term circuit refers to a point-to-point physical or logical path between two nodes, which can support continuous communications in one ‘or both directions. A collection of nodes joined by transmission links and arranged in some topology constitutes a communication network. At this point we need to note the meaning of the word “server,” which can refer to both a network device and a functional role in a peer-oriented communication service, as described in Sec. 1.3.1. As a network device, a server provides specific functions to the whole network or to a significant segment of a network. For example, a network commonly has the following servers: © A file server, which isa centralized device having disks that are dedicated to storing files or software programs that users on a network can access. ‘A print server, which accepts print jobs from computers attached to the network, queues these requests, and then sends them to an attached printer. ‘© A mail server, which interacts with a mail application in network computers to enable users to exchange e-mail messages across both internal and external net- works. ‘The physical attachment point in a station or a switch node is called a port. Note that a network device may have more than one port, for example, a switch generally ‘has numerous input and output ports. As shown later, the shared transmission medium also can be reduced to a single-signal concentrating point, with all network devices6 CHAPTER | OVERVIEW OF LOCAL AREA NETWORKS connected directly to this point. The concentrator simply acts as a repeater since ariy station connected to this network point will see the transmission from another station. A section of cable connects a microprocessor-based LAN access controller, or network access unit (NAU), in a station with a media access unit (MAU). The MAU connects directly to the shared medium so that it can broadcast and receive information over the network cable. The NAU coordinates the transfer of information between the station and the network. It contains the hardware, software, and control information stored on read-only memory (ROM) and usually resides on a circuit card called the network interface card (NIC). Since the elements attached to a network usually come from several manufacturers, they may not conform to a common data transmission scheme. Thus, in addition to providing media access, another function of the NIC, if necessary, is to transform the data rate and transmission format of the attached device to that of the LAN, as shown in Fig. 1.3. When data arrives for the attached station, the NIC temporarily stores it in an internal buffer while it is converted to match the data rate and format of the attached device. Likewise, data sent out from a station is buffered temporarily in the NIC while it is encoded to match the data transmission characteristics of the LAN. Other functions of the NIC include timing, buffering data from the attached equipment until medium access is achieved, scanning each message on the medium 10 see if it is destined for its attached device, and monitoring the incoming messages for errors. As Fig. 1.4 illustrates, one can interconnect two or more LANs or LAN segments at either the physical level or through higher-level communication protocols. As Chap. 2 describes, a protocol is a set of rules that governs communication between peer entities ‘on network devices, that is, between the same type of hardware components and/or LAN transmission line shin ous oo Sim “in wa fe) a= ‘in PC) cs sn sain =a ze a FIGURE 13 ANIC ean function as a conversion interface if the data ‘ite and protocol differ between a LAN and an attached device.1.1 BASICLLAN TERMINOLOGY 7 LAN 1 — Segment 1 LAN | — Segment? Repeater, aad = ‘Bridge ee layer 2) | a Z oS FIGURE 14 Interconnections of LANs and LAN segments through layered protocols. software applications running on each machine. A common way of applying protocols is to partition them into layers, with each layer relying on lower layers to carry out more elementary functions and to offer total transparency to upper layers in regards to the operational details of those functions. Therefore if a networking function operates at layer x, then the associated protocol would define the rules for machine-to-machine communications between the functions at this level. The lowest layer is the physical level, which simply transmits information bits over a physical medium. At this level LAN segments are connected using a device called a repeater. Forthe next two higher-level communication protocols the interconnecting devices are bridges and routers, respectively. A bridge is a relatively inexpensive device that may be used to segment a large LAN into smaller parts that have distinct communities of interest. If each of these segments has its own server, then most of the traffic will stay within a segment. A router has capabilities beyond those of a bridge since it operates at a higher protocol level. In addition to segmenting the network into smaller domains, it can limit broadcast traffic, provide firewall protection, and perform intelligent routing of packets. A firewall is a device that inspects incoming packets and determines whether ‘or not to let them into the network. Chapter 10 gives further explanations of bridges and routers. Chapter 12 addresses the concepts of using a firewall. In addition, people often apply the word switch not only to equipment that performs switching functions, but also to bridges and routers since their original functions may have been enhanced with new additional capabilities.8 CHAPTER | OVERVIEW OF LOCAL AREA NETWORKS, 1.2 LAN STANDARDS Standards are national or international agreements that specify factors such as equip- ment installation procedures, test procedures for equipment or physical plant operation, and interface requirements that will allow equipment from different manufacturers to interoperate. For network applications these standards specify the hardware interfaces and software procedures through which networking elements can communicate correctly and reliably. The key standards organizations promoting standards for telecommunication is- sues related to LANs include the following: ‘+ The Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the International Telecommu- nication Union (ITU-T), which is an organization that operates under the auspices of the United Nations. ‘+ The International Standards Organization (ISO), which works mainly in the infor- mation technology area.'° ‘* The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)."" ‘+ The American National Standards Institute (ANSI)! ‘+ The Electronic Industries Association in conjunction with the Telecommunication Industries Association (EIA/TIA).!3'4 ‘Among the LAN-related standards that originate from these organizations, the principal ones are as follows: 1. The OSI Reference Model, which recommends a baseline for a network architecture that defines the relationships and interactions between network services and functions through common interfaces and protocols. Chapter 2 describes the details of this model and its modifications for LANs and other networks. 2. Various ELA/TIA procedures for installing and testing LANs. 3. The IEEE-802 committee deals with a variety of LAN standards such as Ethernet, token rings, and wireless LANs. 4, ANSI addresses high-speed LANs such as Fibre Channel. 13 HOW LANS OPERATE Here we look at some concepts related to the operation of LANs. These include the client/server interaction, the formation of data units, connectionless versus connection- oriented services, and message transfer methods.'-'* 1.3.1. Client/Server Concept ‘The exchange of information between processes running in two different stations con- nected through a LAN may be characterized by a client/server interaction. The terms cclient and server describe the functional roles of the stations in the network, as Fig. 1.5 illustrates. The process that requests access to a file is called the client, and the process that supports access to the file is called the server. For reading a file the client sends a1.3 HOWLANS OPERATE 9 FIGURE LS The networking concept ofa client/server interaction. small request message to a server. The server then sends back a response to this request, which is a larger message that contains the requested file. When writing a message, a client sends a large message containing data to be written to the server. and the server responds with a small confirmation message to verify that the data has been written to the storage disk. Clients and servers communicate with each other through an application program interface (API) of middleware. Examples of middleware include the Distributed Com- puting Environment (DCE) specification established by the Open Software Foundation and the Object Request Broker (ORB) created by the Object Management Group.'° For example, a client communicates with a server through the services of the ORB. The ORB receives a request from a client, finds a server that can satisfy the request, sends. the request to the server, and returns the response from the server to the client. The server process typically resides on a computer that differs from the one on which the client process is running. In addition, the server process may not be running at the time of the request, so the ORB needs to initiate it on the other machine, Furthermore. the server process could be on a machine attached to a different LAN. The ORB handles these situations and thus provides client and server independence. If a client ean ae- cess the ORB, then itis able to interact with any server that can communicate with the ORB. These features offer hardware and software independence between the client and, the server. ‘An example of a client/server process is the interaction between an e-mail user and an e-mail server. The e-mail server functions as a post office for its clients through, ‘operations such as supplying mail addresses for a specitied user name. distributing m10 CHAPTER | OVERVIEW OF LOCAL AREA NETWORKS, interfacing to other e-mail servers, coordinating mail from different e-mail programs, and providing mail agent functions. One type of mail agent is a vacation agent, which can collect incoming mail in an electronic folder, reroute mail to another address, or notify senders that the recipient is away and will return on a specific date. 1.3.2. Formation of Data Units From the standpoint of an interactive session between two or more network users & ‘message is a single unit of communication that is sent from one participant to another. For example, in an electronic mail (e-mail) system a message would consist of adocument sent from one user to another. A message in an image transmission system could be a fax, a single figure, an image, or a diagram. A critical factor in message transmission is that the recipient must receive the entire message. A message transmitted over a network usually is represented as a string of bits, that is, a series of logical 1s and 0s. To manage properly factors such as message delay, buffer capacity, and congestion control, long messages normally are broken up into shorter data blocks or segments, as Fig. 1.6 illustrates. These data blocks then are sent through a network, such as a LAN, as individual units and are reassembled into the complete original message at the destination station. This process is known as segmentation and reassembly. To enable routers or switches in the communication path to direct these data blocks to their destination, a header consisting of source and destination address fields plus additional control bits must be added to form a packet or a frame (depending on the protocol layer), as illustrated in Fig. 1.6 for segment N — 1. These control bits offer features such as the indication of the beginning and end of a frame (frame delimiting), error detection and correction mechanisms, designation of the priority of a packet, and possible acknowledgment schemes for verifying that a packet arrived at its destination. 1.3.3 Connectionless and Connection-Oriented Services ‘The process of creating a communication path between two nodes can be characterized as either a connectionless or a connection-oriented service. In a connection-oriented ‘operation a single logical network path (called a virtual circuit) is established between the two communicating elements for the duration of the connection. The logical path FIGURE 1.6 ‘Segmentation of along message into smaller manageable length packets and the adition of address and, ‘control fields.1.3 HOW LANS OPERATE is set up first and then information messages are exchanged. This path consists of the concatenation of a series of logical connections that join the two users across the network. Typically network resources are reserved at the time of path establishment in order to ensure the availability of a particular grade of service, such as a guaranteed throughput rate, During the data transfer phase packets are sent sequentially over the path that has been established. This means that the packets always arrive at the destination station in the order in which they were sent. When the information transfer is completed, the connection is terminated. Ina connectionless operation the path and its bandwidth are selected dynamically for each packet of an information exchange. Dynamic path selection allows traffic to be routed easily around network failures and congestion points since the paths are selected on a packet-by-packet basis. In addition, dynamic bandwidth allocation allows the net- ‘work resources to be used more efficiently. When a packet is sent through a series of routers or switches in a connectionless path, each device makes an independent decision for every packet as to what the next hop should be for that packet. Thus different packets ‘may follow different routes between source and destination stations, With a connection- less service, factors such as packet sequencing and data throughput are not guaranteed and the information flow must be able to tolerate some delay. 1.3.4 Message Transfer Methods From a top-level classification networks can interconnect users by either a broadcast or a switching scheme. A switched network uses transmission lines, multiplexing equipment, concentrators, and switches to interconnect users, as illustrated in Fig. 1.7. The network equipment can be connected either directly to the central switch with dedicated lines, through a shared medium concentrator (which allows only one station in its attached ‘Muliple Personal computers ‘workstations FIGURE 1.7 Bxaraple of a switched LAN.12 CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW OF LOCAL AREA NETWORKS, group to communicate with the switch at one time), or via a multiplexer that interleaves the signals from a number of stations onto a single line. To direct packets from a source to a destination, the network needs to use routing tables by which the switches can determine the path between these two stations. In contrast, broadcast networks are much less complex since all information is sent to each station. Thus routing is not necessary in this case. A simple addressing schense is sufficient to indicate the destination af a given packet. However, since itis a multiple access network, a broadcast network needs some type of medium access control (MAC) protocol to coordinate the transmissions among the various network users. Initially LANs were based on a broadcast scheme, owing to the simplicity and low cost of this type of network. In a broadcast method each LAN station has a unique physical address, which is usually burned into a ROM that resides in the NIC. Despite the success of broadcast LANs, in the mid-1990s it was found that a