Network Layer- Part 1

Dr. Layal Abu Daher

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 Network Layer

• Responsible for delivering packets

between endpoints over multiple links
Application
Transport
• On sending side, the sender encapsulates Network
segments into datagrams or packets. Data Link
Physical
๏ Adds the header information (packaging)

• On receiving side, delivers segments to

transport layer

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3
 Two key network-layer functions

• The role of the network layer is to move packets from a sending

host to a receiving host.

• To do so, two important network-layer functions can be

identified:

1. forwarding: move packets from router’s input to appropriate

router output
2. routing: determine route taken by packets from source to
destination
- routing algorithms

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 Interplay between routing and forwarding

Every router has a

forwarding table.

A router forwards a packet by

examining the value of a field in
the arriving packet’s header,
and then using this header
value to index into the router’s
forwarding table.
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 Services Provided by The Network Layer

• Guaranteed delivery. This service guarantees that the packet

will eventually arrive at its destination.

• Guaranteed delivery with bounded delay. This service

guarantees delivery within a specified host-to-host delay bound
(for example, within 100 msec).

• In-order packet delivery. This service guarantees that

packets arrive at the destination in the order that they were
sent.

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 Services Provided by The Network Layer

• Guaranteed maximum jitter. This service guarantees that the

amount of time between the transmission of two successive
packets at the sender is equal to the amount of time between
their receipt at the destination. (difference of time)

• Security services. Using a secret session key known only by

a source and destination host, the network layer in the source
host could encrypt the payloads of all datagrams being sent to
the destination host. The network layer in the destination host
would then be responsible for decrypting the payloads. (built in
encryption and decryption)

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 Virtual Circuit and Datagram Networks

• Network layer provides service to transport layer in one of two

ways.

• Computer networks that provide only a connection oriented

service at the network layer are called virtual-circuit (VC)
networks (Like the landline)

• Computer networks that provide only a connectionless

service at the network layer are called datagram networks.
(like the postman)

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 Implementation of Network Layer Services

• If connection-oriented service is used, a path from the source

router all the way to the destination router must be established
before any data packets can be sent.
- This connection is called a VC (virtual circuit)
- the network is called a virtual-circuit network.
- Static Routing (The routing table does not change)

• If connectionless service is offered, packets are injected into

the network individually and routed independently of each
other.
- No advance setup is needed.  No prior Connection
- packets are frequently called datagrams
- the network is called a datagram network.
- Dynamic Routing (The routing table changes because data is sent
randomly and the destination put them together)
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 Routing within a datagram network

• Suppose that P1 has a long message for P2.

• The message is four times longer than the maximum packet
size, so the network layer has to break it into four packets.

IP (Internet Protocol),
which is the basis for
the entire Internet, is
the dominant example
of a connectionless
network service. 10
 Virtual Circuit Networks

• For connection-oriented service, we need a virtual-circuit

network

• When a connection is established, a route from the source

machine to the destination machine is chosen as part of the
connection setup and stored in tables inside the routers.

• That route is used for all traffic flowing over the connection,
exactly the same way that the telephone system works.

• When the connection is released, the virtual circuit is also

terminated.
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 Routing within a virtual-circuit network

• Suppose host H1 has established connection 1 with host H2.

Connection
identifier

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Comparison of Virtual-Circuit and Datagram
Networks

Connectionless Connection Oriented

Static
Dynamic

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 Routing Algorithms
• Routing Algorithm decides which line the packet will take

• Whether the network layer provides a datagram service (or a VC

service), the network layer must nonetheless determine the path that
packets take from senders to receivers.

• Typically a host is attached directly to one router, the default router

for the host (also called the first-hop router for the host).

• Whenever a host sends a packet, the packet is transferred to its

default router.

• We refer to the default router of the source host as the source router
and the default router of the destination host as the destination
router. 14
 Routing Algorithms

• Shortest Path Algorithm

• Distance Vector Routing

• Link State Routing

• Hierarchical Routing

• Broadcast Routing

• Multicast Routing

• Anycast Routing
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 Routing Algorithm and Graph abstraction

• The purpose of a routing algorithm is simple: given a set of

routers, with links connecting the routers, a routing algorithm
finds a “good” path from source router to destination router.
• A graph is used to formulate routing problems. Recall that a
graph G = (N,E) is a set N of nodes and a collection E of
edges, where each edge is a pair of nodes from N.

v 3 w
2 5
u 2 1 z
3
1 2
x y
1

graph: G = (N,E)
N = set of routers = { u, v, w, x, y, z }
E = set of links ={ (u,v), (u,x), (v,x), (v,w), (x,w), (x,y), (w,y), (w,z), (y,z) }
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 Graph abstraction: Costs

• Edge has a value representing its cost.

• An edge’s cost may reflect the physical length of the corresponding

link (for example, a transoceanic link might have a higher cost than a
short-haul terrestrial link), the link speed, or the monetary cost
associated with a link.

• For any edge (x,y) in E, we denote c(x,y) as the cost of the edge
between nodes x and y.

• If the pair (x,y) does not belong to E, we set c(x,y) = ∞.

• A node y is said to be a neighbor of node x if (x,y) belongs to E. 17

 Graph abstraction: costs

• A path in a graph G = (N,E) is a sequence of nodes

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(x1, x2,..., xp) such that each of the pairs (x1,x2),
v 3 w
(x2,x3),...,(xp-1,xp) are edges in E. 2 5
u 2 1 z
• Cost of path (x1, x2, x3,…, xp) = c(x1,x2) + 3
1 2
x
c(x2,x3) + … + c(xp-1,xp) 1
y

• least-cost path: Find a path between the source and destination that
has least cost.

• For example, the least-cost path between source node u and

destination node w is (u, x, y, w) with a path cost of 3.

• Note that if all edges in the graph have the same cost, the least-cost
path is also the shortest path (that is, the path with the smallest
number of links between the source and the destination). 18
 The Link-State (LS) Routing Algorithm

• The link-state routing algorithm we present below is known as

Dijkstra’s algorithm, named after its inventor.

Dijkstra’s algorithm notation:

• net topology, link costs known to all • c(x,y): link cost from node x
nodes to y; = ∞ if not direct
- accomplished via “link state neighbors
broadcast”
• D(v): current value of cost of
- all nodes have same info
path from source to dest. v
• computes least cost paths from one
• p(v): predecessor node along
node (‘source”) to all other nodes
path from source to v
- gives forwarding table for that node
• N': set of nodes whose least
• iterative: after k iterations, know
cost path definitively known
least cost path to k dest.’s

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 Dijkstra’s Algorithm

1 Initialization:
2 N' = {u}
3 for all nodes v
4 if v adjacent to u
5 then D(v) = c(u,v)
6 else D(v) = ∞
7
8 Loop
9 find w not in N' such that D(w) is a minimum
10 add w to N'
11 update D(v) for all v adjacent to w and not in N' :
12 D(v) = min( D(v), D(w) + c(w,v) )
13 /* new cost to v is either old cost to v or known
14 shortest path cost to w plus cost from w to v */
15 until all nodes in N'
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 Dijkstra’s Algorithm

• Consider the network below and compute the least-cost paths

from u to all possible destinations.

x
9

D(v) D(w) D(x) D(y) D(z) 5 7

Step N' 4
0 u 7,u 3,u 5,u ∞ ∞ 8
1 uw 6,w 5,u 11,w ∞ 3
u w y z
2 uwx 6,w 11,w 14,x 2
3 uwxv 10,v 14,x
3
4 uwxvy 12,y 7 4
5 uwxvyz
v

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 Least cost path and forwarding table

• When the LS algorithm terminates, we have, for each node, its

predecessor along the least-cost path from the source node.
• For each predecessor, we also have its predecessor, and so in
this manner we can construct the entire path from the source
to all destinations.
• The forwarding table in a node, say node u, can then be
constructed from this information by storing, for each
destination, the next-hop node on the least-cost path from u to
the destination.

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 Distance Vector Algorithm

• key idea:
• from time-to-time, each node sends its own distance vector estimate
to neighbors
• when x receives new DV estimate from neighbor, it updates its own
DV using B-F equation:
Dx(y) ← minv{c(x,v) + Dv(y)} for each node y ∊ N

each node:
wait for (change in local link cost
or msg from neighbor)

recompute estimates

if DV to any dest has changed, notify

neighbors

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 Step-by-Step

• c(x,v) = cost for direct link from x to v

- Node x maintains costs of direct links c(x,v)

• Dx(y) = estimate of least cost from x to y

- Node x maintains distance vector Dx = [Dx(y): y є N ]

• Node x maintains its neighborsʼ distance vectors

- For each neighbor v, x maintains Dv = [Dv(y): y є N ]

• Each node v periodically sends Dv to its neighbors

- And neighbors update their own distance vectors
- Dx(y) ← minv{c(x,v) + Dv(y)} for each node y ∊ N 24
Distance-vector (DV) algorithm Example

Figure 4.30 illustrates the

operation of the DV algorithm for
the simple three-node network.

Figure 4.30 25
 DV Algorithm Initial Operation

• The table in the upper-left corner is node x’s initial routing

table.
• Within a specific routing table, each row is a distance vector—
specifically, each node’s routing table includes its own distance
vector and that of each of its neighbors.
• Thus, the first row in node x’s initial routing table is
• Dx = [Dx(x), Dx(y), Dx(z)] = [0, 2, 7].
• The second and third rows in this table are the most recently
received distance vectors from nodes y and z, respectively.
• Because at initialization, node x has not received anything from
node y or z, the entries in the second and third rows are
initialized to infinity.

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 Sending DV between neighbor hosts

• After initialization, each node sends its distance vector to each of its
two neighbors.
• This is illustrated in Figure 4.30 by the arrows from the first column
of tables to the second column of tables.
• For example, node x sends its distance vector Dx = [0, 2, 7] to both
nodes y and z. After receiving the updates, each node re-computes
its own distance vector. For example, node x computes

• The second column, in Figure 4.30, displays, for each node, the
node’s new distance vector along with distance vectors just received
from its neighbors.

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 Distance-vector (DV) Algorithm Operation

• After the nodes recompute their distance vectors, they again

send their updated distance vectors to their neighbors (if there
has been a change).

• This is illustrated in Figure 4.30 by the arrows from the second

column of tables to the third column of tables.

• Note that only nodes x and z send updates: node y’s distance
vector didn’t change so node y doesn’t send an update.

• After receiving the updates, the nodes then recompute their

distance vectors and update their routing tables, which are
shown in the third column. 28
 DV Algorithm Quiescent State

• The process of receiving updated distance vectors from

neighbors, recomputing routing table entries, and informing
neighbors of changed costs of the least-cost path to a
destination continues until no update messages are sent.

• At this point, since no update messages are sent, no further

routing table calculations will occur and the algorithm will enter
a quiescent state.

• The algorithm remains in the quiescent state until a link cost

changes.

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 Changes in Link Cost

• At time t0 y detects link cost change

• At time t1, z receives updates from y
• At time t2, y receives z’s update
• y’s least costs do not change and hence y does not send any
message to z
• The algorithm comes to a quiescent state