Networks in different geographic locations but with shared links are called Networking Concepts

Wide Area Networks (WAN). A WAN is more likely to make use of a service
provider network. Companies that operate national telephone networks are
called telecommunications companies or telcos. Companies that specialize
in providing Internet access are called Internet Service Providers (ISP).
Telcos operate as ISPs themselves but also make parts of their networks
available to smaller ISPs.

Network Media
A network is made by creating communications pathways between the devices
on the network. Network endpoints can be referred to as nodes or hosts.
Communications pathways are implemented using an adapter installed in the
host to transmit and receive signals and network media between the interfaces
to carry the signals. There are two main types of local network connections:

■ Wired data connections use cabling and either electrical signals over
copper wire or light signals over fiber optic to connect nodes. Most local
networks use a wired network standard called Ethernet to implement these
links.

■ Wireless (Wi-Fi) data connections use radio signals to transmit signals

over the air. With Wi-Fi, a node usually connects to an access point at a
range of up to about 30m.

Wide area networks can also use copper or fiber optic cabling and various
types of wireless networking, including point-to-point radio, cellular radio, and
satellite communications.

Addressing and Protocols

Network signals must be packaged in such a way that each host is able to
understand them. Also, each host must have a means of recognizing the
location of other hosts on the network. These functions are provided by a
network protocol. A network protocol identifies each host on the network using
a unique address. It also defines a packet structure. A packet is a wrapper for
each data unit transmitted over the network. A packet generally consists of a
header (indicating the protocol type, source address, destination address,
error correction information, and so on) and a payload (the data).

Networks use multiple protocols. The packet from one protocol can
be wrapped within the packet from another (encapsulation).

The overwhelming majority of networks use TCP/IP to perform these functions.

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Module 4 / Unit 1
TCP/IP

In an age when even your refrigerator is connected to the Internet, it’s

important that you understand the basics of networking, specifically, how the
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite of protocols
works to provide the apps and services we increasingly rely on.

Packet Transmission
The original research underpinning TCP/IP was performed in the late 1960s
and early 1970s by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), which
is the research arm of the US Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD
wanted to build a network to connect a number of military sites. The prototype
was a research network called ARPANET, first operational in 1972. This
connected four university sites using a system described as a packet
switching network.

Prior to this development, any two computers wanting to communicate had to

open a direct channel, known as a circuit. If this circuit was broken, the
computers would stop communicating immediately. Packet switching
introduces the ability for one computer to forward information to another. To
ensure information reaches the correct destination, each packet is addressed
with a source and destination address and then transferred using any available
pathway to the destination computer. A host capable of performing this
forwarding function is called a router.

A packet switching protocol is described as "robust" because it can

automatically recover from communication link failures. It re-routes data
packets if transmission lines are damaged or if a router fails to respond. It can
utilize any available network path rather than a single, dedicated one.

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Packet switching internetwork. Image © 123rf.com.
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 The figure above shows an example of an internetworking system. A packet Networking Concepts
being sent from Network A to Network D may be sent via Network C (the
quickest route). If this route becomes unavailable, the packet is routed using
an alternate route (for example, A-F-E-D).

As well as the forwarding function and use of multiple paths, data is divided
into small chunks or packets. Using numerous, small packets means that if
some are lost or damaged during transmission, it is easier to resend just the
small, lost packets than having to re-transmit the entire message.

TCP/IP Protocol Suite Layers

The major benefit in utilizing TCP/IP is the wide support for the protocol. It is
the primary protocol of the Internet and the World Wide Web. It is also the
primary protocol for many private internets, which are networks that connect
Local Area Networks (LANs) together.

As mentioned above, TCP/IP is a suite or set of network transport protocols.

When considering network technologies and protocols, it is helpful to conceive
of them as working in layers. The TCP/IP model consists of four layers, each
with defined functions. At each layer are protocols within the TCP/IP suite, or
its supporting technologies, that make use of the protocols in the layer below
and provide services to the protocols in the layer above:

Layers in the TCP/IP protocol suite.

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Module 4 / Unit 1 The four layers are as follows:

■ Link or Network Interface layer—responsible for putting frames onto the

physical network. This layer does not contain TCP/IP protocols as such. At
this layer, different networking products and media can be used, such as
Ethernet or Wi-Fi. Communications on this layer take place only on a local
network segment and not between different networks. Data at the link layer
is packaged in a unit called a frame.

■ Internet layer—encapsulates packets into Internet datagrams and deals

with routing between different networks. Three key protocols are used at
this layer:

● Internet Protocol (IP)—the main protocol in the TCP/IP suite is

responsible for logical addressing and routing of packets between hosts
and networks.

● Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)—used for hardware address

resolution. Each host has a link or network interface layer address,
usually called the Media Access Control (MAC) address, to identify it on
the local physical network. To deliver packets, this local MAC address
must be resolved to a logical IP address using ARP.

● Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)—sends messages and

reports on errors regarding packet delivery.

■ Transport layer—these protocols provide communication sessions

between computers. Each application protocol is identified at the transport
layer by a port number. There are two transport protocols:

● Transport Control Protocol (TCP) provides connection-oriented

delivery. This means that the delivery is reliable and that packets are
delivered in the correct sequence.

● User Datagram Protocol (UDP) provides connectionless delivery –

there is no guarantee that packets will arrive in the correct sequence.
Any issues arising from the unreliable nature of UDP must be dealt with
at the application layer. The advantage of UDP is that there is less
overhead involved in processing and transmitting each packet and so it
is faster than TCP.

■ Application layer—the top level of the architecture contains protocols that

provide the communications formats for exchanging data between hosts,
such as transmitting an email message or requesting a web page.

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 Internet Protocol Networking Concepts

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the primary protocol responsible for the
forwarding function we defined above. It provides packet delivery for all higher-
level protocols within the suite. It provides best effort delivery between hosts
on a local network or within an internetwork of an unreliable and
connectionless nature.

Delivery is not guaranteed and a packet might be lost, delivered out of

sequence, duplicated, or delayed.

IP Packet Structure
At the IP layer, any information received from the transport layer is wrapped in
a datagram. The transport layer datagram is the payload and IP adds a
number of fields in a header to describe the payload and how to deliver it:

Field Explanation
Source IP address Identifies the sender of the datagram by IP
address.
Destination IP Identifies the destination of the datagram
address by IP address.
Protocol Indicates whether the data should be
passed to UDP or TCP at the destination
host.
Checksum Verifies the packet's integrity upon arrival
at the destination.
Time to Live The number of seconds a datagram is
allowed to stay on the network before
being discarded, otherwise packets could
endlessly loop around an internet. A router
will decrease the TTL by at least one
second when it handles the packet, and is
required to decrement the TTL by at least
the time spent in the router.

Once the fields have been added, the IP datagrams are packaged into a
suitable frame format and delivered over the local network segment.

IP Addresses
As you can see from the fields in the datagram, an IP address is used to
logically identify each device (host) on a given network. An IP address is a 32-
bit binary value. To make this value easier to enter in configuration dialogs, it is
expressed as four decimal numbers separated by periods: 172.30.15.12 for
instance. Each number represents a byte value, that is, an eight-character
binary value, also called an octet, or a decimal value between 0 and 255. This
is referred to as dotted decimal notation.
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Module 4 / Unit 1 Recall that you can convert between binary and decimal by setting out the
place value of each binary digit. For example, you can convert 172 as follows:

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0
128*1 64*0 32*1 16*0 8*1 4*1 2*0 1*0
128 + 0 + 32 + 0 + 8 + 4 + 0 + 0
= 172

Refer back to Unit 2.1 for the topic on binary and decimal notation.

This information relates to IP version 4. IP version 6 (IPv6) defines

longer addresses (128 bit compared to 32 bit). These are
expressed in hex notation (2001:db8::abc:0:def0:1234 for
example).

Network Prefixes and Subnet Masks

An IP address encodes two pieces of information:

■ The network number (network ID)—this number is common to all hosts on

the same IP network.

■ The host number (host ID)—this unique number identifies a host on a

particular network or logical subnetwork.

In order to distinguish the network ID and host ID portions within an address,

each host must also be configured with a network prefix length or subnet
mask. This is combined with the IP address to determine the identity of the
network to which the host belongs.

The network prefix is also a 32-bit number. It contains a contiguous series of

binary ones where the matching bit of the IP address is a part of the network
ID. The rest of the mask is zeroes and represents the host ID bits in the IP
address. For example, the prefix /8 would contain eight binary ones followed
by 24 binary zeros. The prefix could also be expressed as a subnet mask by
converting it to dotted decimal (255.0.0.0).

IPv6 only uses network prefixes to identify the network portion of

the address.

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 Packet Delivery and Forwarding Networking Concepts

The Internet Protocol (IP) covers addressing and forwarding at a "logical" level
between networks with distinct IDs (network layer). Actual delivery of
information takes place at the lower physical/data link layer. The IP datagram
is put into a frame. Frames can only be delivered over a local network
segment.

MAC Addresses
Frames use a different addressing method than IP. At the data link layer, each
host is identified by the address of its network interface. This is called a
hardware address or a Media Access Control (MAC) address. The MAC
address is assigned to the network adapter at the factory. It is a 48-bit value
expressed in hex notation. It is often displayed as six groups of two
hexadecimal digits with colon or hyphen separators or no separators at all (for
example, 00:60:8c:12:3a:bc or 00608c123abc) or as three groups of
four hex digits with period separators (0060.8c12.3abc).

Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

If two systems are to communicate using IP, the host sending the packet must
map the IP address of the destination host to the hardware address of the
destination host. The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is the protocol that
enables this process of local address discovery to take place. Hosts broadcast
ARP messages onto the local network to find out which host MAC address
"owns" a particular IP address. If the destination host responds, the frame can
be delivered. Hosts also cache IP:MAC address mappings for several minutes
to reduce the number of ARP messages that have to be sent.

Using ARP for local address resolution.

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