HARAMAYA UNIVERSITY

HARAMAYA INSTITUTE OF THECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING
COMMUNICATION STREAM
Assignment of switching and intelligent networks
By
Name…………………………………………………………………………………ID
1. Abdi Daniel……………………………………………………….3711/10
2. Abel Birhanu……………………………………………………………………3836/10
3. Amanuel Fekadu……………………………………………………………….4245/10
4. Amanuel Mesele……………………………………………………………….3821/10
5. Amlaku Tekeba……………………………………………………………….47
6. Anuwat Degela……………………………………………………………………
7. Awel Mengstu……………………………………………………………….
8. Awol Hasen…………………………………………………………………
9. Belachew Temesgen………………………………………………………..
10. Mokennen Girma………………………………………………………….

Submitted to: Asmamew.G

Submission date: may 24-2022

HARAMAYA UNIVERSITY
Contents
Switching Techniques..................................................................................................................................2
Message Switching..................................................................................................................................2
1.1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................................2
1.2 History...............................................................................................................................................3
1.3 Working principle of Message Switching Technique.........................................................................4
1.3.1 Delay in message switching........................................................................................................5
1.3.2 Store and forward delays............................................................................................................8
1.4 Block diagram of message switching.................................................................................................8
1.5 Advantage and disadvantage...........................................................................................................11
1.6 Applications.....................................................................................................................................12
References.............................................................................................................................................12
 Switching Techniques
Switching Techniques are the techniques that are used and applied on a large network. Switching
technique comes into picture when these large network needs to transfer the packet from source
to destination i.e. from sender to receiver. The packet ready for transmission from source to
destination needs to trace the route from which the transmission of packets will take place. The
process of selecting the available route for data transmission of packets from sender to receiver is
known as Switching. In large networks there might be multiple paths linking sender and
receiver. Information may be switched as it travels through various communication channels.

There are three typical switching techniques available for digital traffic.

 Circuit Switching
 Message Switching
 Packet Switching

Message Switching

1.1 Introduction
When the source station does not have enough data to transmit continuously, resources are
unnecessarily kept idle for the duration of time when there is no transfer of data. To avoid such
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situations, a different switching method called message switching is used. In this switching
method, no dedicated physical path is established in advance. Instead, it is based on a technique
called store and forward switching. When the source station has a message block to send, it is
stored in the first switching node. Each node in the network is an electronic switching device.
Nodes are equipped with enough buffers to hold the incoming message. As soon as a free
channel is seized, the first node sends a copy of the stored message to the next node on the path
through the communication channel, just seized. At each hop, the message is examined for
errors. The message hops from one node to another node until it reaches the destination.

A message is a logical unit of information and can be of any length. In message switching, if a
station wishes to send a message to another station, it first adds the destination address to the
message. Each message is treated as an independent unit. In message switching, each complete
message is then transmitted from device to device through the internetwork i.e

message is transmitted from the source node to intermediate node. The intermediate node stores
the complete message temporarily, inspects it for errors and transmits the message to the next
node based on an available free channel and its routing information. The actual path taken by the
message to its destination is dynamic as the path is established as it travels along. When the
message reaches a node, the channel on which it came is released for use by another message.

In message switching there is no need to establish a dedicated path between two stations. When a
station sends a message, the destination address is appended to the message. The message is then
transmitted through the network, in its entirety, from node to node. Each node receives the entire
message, stores it in its entirety on disk, and then transmits the message to the next node. This
type of network is called a store-and-forward network. Data channels are shared among the
communicating devices that improve the efficiency of using available bandwidth. Traffic
congestion can be reduced because the message is temporarily stored in the nodes. Message
priority can be used to manage the network. The size of the message which is sent over the
network can be varied. Therefore, it supports the data of unlimited size.

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1.2 History
Western Union operated a message switching system, Plan 55-A, for processing telegrams in the
1950s. Leonard Kleinrock wrote a doctoral thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
1962 that analyzed queueing delays in this system. Message switching was built by Collins Radio
Company, Newport Beach, California, during the period 1959–1963 for sale to large airlines,
banks and railroads.The original design for the ARPANET was Wesley Clark's April 1967
proposal for using Interface Message Processors to create a message switching network.

Packet switching was incorporated into the design by Larry Roberts after the first ACM Symposium on
Operating Systems Principles in October 1967 based on the work of both Donald Davies and Paul Baran
who had been working on the idea of packet switching independently of each other. Message switching
systems are nowadays mostly implemented over packet-switched or circuit-switched data networks.
Each message is treated as a separate entity. Each message contains addressing information, and at
each switch this information is read and the transfer path to the next switch is decided. Depending on
network conditions, a conversation of several

messages may not be transferred over the same path. Each message is stored (usually on hard
drive due to RAM limitations) before being transmitted to the next switch. Because of this it is
also known as a 'store and forward' network. Email is a common application for message
switching. A delay in delivering email is allowed, unlike real-time data transfer between two
computers.

Hop-by-hop Telex forwarding and UUCP are examples of message switching systems. When
this form of switching is used, no physical path is established in advance between sender and
receiver. Instead, when the sender has a block of data to be sent, it is stored in the first switching
office (i.e. router) then forwarded later one hop at a time. Each block is received in its entity
form, inspected for errors and then forwarded or re-transmitted.
A form of store-and-forward network. Data is transmitted into the network and stored in a
switch. The network transfers the data from switch to switch when it is convenient to do so, as
such the data is not transferred in real-time. Blocking cannot occur, however, long delays can
happen. The source and destination terminal need not be compatible, since conversions are done
by the message switching networks.

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A message switch is “transactional”. It can store data or change its format and bit rate, then
convert the data back to their original form or an entirely different form at the receive end.
Message switching multiplexes data from different sources onto a common facility. A message
switch is one of the switching technologies.

1.3 Working principle of Message Switching Technique

Message Switching Technique is a technique that is used for transferring a message as a
complete entity and gets routed through nodes that are intermediate and are used to store and
forward the messages in sync. In Message switching, there is no specific continuous path
between source and destination i.e. receiver. The intermediate node based on information is
appended to the message with the destination address on top of it. Message switches provide the
most efficient route which is programmed in a most prominent way.

Message switches provide the most efficient route which is programmed in a most prominent
way. This network has a tendency to store and forward the network and its information to the
next node which treats each message as an independent entity. The advantage of using message
Switching is data channels share available bandwidth which improves its efficiency

data channels share available bandwidth which improves its efficiency over time. Priority of
message can be done to use and manage network and also the size can be of unlimited type.
There might be a delay in time due to the forwarding and storing of message feature available in
the Message Switching Technique

1.3.1 Delay in message switching

 A message switched network consists of store-and-forward switches interconnected by

trunks. A single trunk is usually sufficient between a pair of switches.
 Multiple trunks can be provided to increase reliability. Each switch is equipped with a
storage device wherein all incoming messages are temporarily stored for onward
transmission.

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 The basic operation of the store-and-forward service is similar to the telegram
service. A message along with the destination address is sent from switch to
switch till it reaches the destination.
 Let us say end system a wants to send a message to end system B as shown in Fig.
A sends its message along with the address of the destination and its own address
to entry switch 1. The addresses are included in the header of the message.
 Switch 1 accepts the message and analyzes the destination address. A routing
table is maintained at each node.
 It contains entries indicating destination nodes and the corresponding outgoing
trunks from the switch. There is a separate queue for each trunk.
 Since the destination node may be accessible via more than one route, decision to
send the message to a particular next switch depends on the expected delay in its
queue. Let us say, the message from A is put in the queue for node 2.
 The message received at switch 2 is again put in a queue of messages awaiting
transmission to switch 4. When its turn comes, the message is sent to switch 4
which delivers it to the destination.
 Some of the basic features of store- and-forward message switching are:
 The store-and-forward service is unidirectional. After delivery of the message, the
network does not send back any confirmation to the source. If end system B is
required to send an acknowledgement to the message received from A, the
acknowledgement is treated like any other message by the network and carries the
addresses of the destination and the source.

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 For switch -to- switch transfer of the message, the network may employ some
error control mechanism. The message may be appended with error-checking bits
and if any error is detected by the receiving switch, it may request the sending
switch for retransmission of the message. Therefore, the sending switch is
required to keep a copy of the message till an acknowledgement is received.
 Since the message is stored in a buffer at the switch at each stage of transmission,
each switch-to-switch transfer is an independent operation. The trunks can operate
at different data rates. Even the source and destination end systems can operate at
different data rates.
 In message switching every message is treated as an independent entity by the
network and, therefore, destination and source addresses are repeated on each
message.
 Delay in Delivery. Fig shows the timing diagram for routing a message through a
message switched network. The message passes through the entry switch, two
transit switches and finally through the exit switch to arrive at the destination.

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Message delivery time is the sum of the following components:
 Time required sending the message to the entry switch
 Switch delay
 Transmission time at each switch.
 The time required to send a message to the entry switch IS determined by the
transmission data rate and the message size.
 Propagation time to the entry switch is usually negligible.
Switch delay is due to two factors:
1. Message processing at each switch (time required for error checking, routing etc.)
2. Waiting time in the queues at each switch.
 The transmission time at each switch is determined by the transmission data rate
and propagation p time for transmission across the trunk.
 The total time required to deliver the message is the linear sum of all these
components of time as they occur in a sequential manner.
 The delivery time varies from message to message because of random waiting
times in queues and alternate routes between the same pair of entry and exit
switches.
 Therefore, time relationship of the messages and their sequence are not
guaranteed
in a message switched network.
 As traffic increases there is increase in message delivery time; because the queues
get longer and there may be congestion on the route.
1.3.2 Store and forward delays

Since message switching stores each message at intermediate nodes in its entirety before
forwarding, messages experience an end to end delay which is dependent on the message length,
and the number of intermediate nodes. Each additional intermediate node introduces a delay
which is at minimum the value of the minimum transmission delay into or out of the node. Note
that nodes could have different transmission delays for incoming messages and outgoing
messages due to different technology used on the links. The transmission delays are in addition
to any propagation delays which will be experienced along the message path.

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In a message-switching centre an incoming message is not lost when the required outgoing route
is busy. It is stored in a queue with any other messages for the same route and retransmitted
when the required circuit becomes free. Message switching is thus an example of a delay system
or a queuing system. Message switching is still used for telegraph traffic and a modified form of
it, known as packet switching, is used extensively for data communications.

1.4 Block diagram of message switching

Message switching is a network switching technique in which data is routed in its entirety
from the source node to the destination node, one hope at a time. During message routing,
every intermediate switch in the network stores the whole message. The actual path taken by the
message to its destination is dynamic as the path is established as it travels along.

 When the message reaches a node, the channel on which it came is released for
use by another message.
 As shown in Figure message Ml is transmitted from A to D and M2 is transmitted
C to B. Message Ml follows the route A –> I –> II –> III –> D and M2 follows
the route C –> IV –> II –> B depending upon the availability of free path at that
particular moment.
 The first electromechanical telecommunication system used message switching
for telegrams. The message was punched on paper tape off-line at the sending
office and then read in and transmitted over a communication line to the next
office along the way, where it was punched out on paper tape. An operator there
tore the tape off and read it in on tape readers.

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They provide 2 distinct and important characteristics: 

1. Store and forward – The intermediate nodes have the responsibility of transferring the
entire message to the next node. Hence, each node must have storage capacity. A
message will only be delivered if the next hop and the link connecting it are both
available, otherwise, it’ll be stored indefinitely. A store-and-forward switch forwards a
message only if sufficient resources are available and the next hop is accepting data. This
is called the store-and-forward property. 
2. Message delivery – This implies wrapping the entire information in a single message and
transferring it from the source to the destination node. Each message must have a header
that contains the message routing information, including the source and destination.
Message switching network consists of transmission links (channels), store-and-forward

switch nodes, and end stations as shown in the following picture: 

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Characteristics of message switching
Message switching is advantageous as it enables efficient usage of network resources. Also,
because of the store-and-forward capability of intermediary nodes, traffic can be efficiently
regulated and controlled. Message delivery as one unit, rather than in pieces, is another benefit. 

However, message switching has certain disadvantages as well. Since messages are
stored indefinitely at each intermediate node, switches require a large storage capacity.
Also, these are pretty slow. This is because at each node, first there is a wait till the entire
message is received, then it must be stored and transmitted after processing the next node
and links to it depending on

availability and channel traffic. Hence, message switching cannot be used for real-time or
interactive applications like a video conference. 

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1.5 Advantage and disadvantage
Advantages of Message Switching

The various advantages of message switching are:

 Data channels are shared among communication devices, improving the use of
bandwidth.
 Messages can be stored temporarily at message switches, when network congestion
becomes a problem.
 Priorities may be used to manage network traffic.
 Broadcast addressing uses bandwidth more efficiently because messages are delivered to
multiple destinations.
 Efficiency is improved by sharing a single channel by many messages.
 Source and destination stations are not simultaneously required to be ready. The network
can store the message in case the receiver is not ready.
 Message switching systems can transmit single message to several destinations; however,
in circuit switching this facility is not permitted.
 Message transfer is possible even when the transfer rates of the source and destinations
differ circuit switching does not support this feature.
 Storing or re-routing the message may be used to restore it from node or link failure
occurring during data transfer.

Disadvantages of Message Switching

The various disadvantages of message switching are:

 As message length is unlimited, each switching node must have sufficient storage to
buffer message.
 Storing & forwarding facility introduces delay thus making message switching unsuitable
for real time applications like voice and video.
 The message switches must be equipped with sufficient storage to enable them to store
the messages until the message is forwarded.
 Message switching treats each message as an independent entity.
 The primary drawback of message switching is that it is not suitable for real time or
interactive traffic. It is not suitable for voice transmission.

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1.6 Applications
Message switching is thus an example of a delay system or a queuing system. Message switching
is still used for telegraph traffic and a modified form of it, known as packet switching, is used
extensively for data communications. The store-and-forward method was implemented in
telegraph message switching centers. Today, although many major networks and systems are
packet-switched or circuit-switched networks, their delivery processes can be based on message
switching. For example, in most electronic mail systems the delivery process is based on
message switching, while the network is in fact either circuit-switched or packet-switched.
 

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References

 Davies, Donald Watts (1979). Computer networks and their protocols. Internet Archive.
Chichester, [Eng.] ; New York : Wiley. pp. 456–477. ISBN 9780471997504.

 Transfilm (1956), Telegram for America, retrieved 2021-03-16

 Kleinrock, Leonard (December 1962). Message Delay in Communication Nets with Storage
(PhD thesis) (PDF) (Thesis). Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 Press, Gil. "A Very Short History Of The Internet And The Web". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-02-
07.

"SRI Project 5890-1; Networking (Reports on Meetings).[1967]". web.stanford.edu. Retrieved

2020-02-15. W. Clark's message switching proposal (appended to Taylor's letter of April 24,
1967 to Engelbart)were reviewed.

Roberts, Lawrence (1967). "Multiple computer networks and intercomputer communication"

(PDF). Multiple Computer Networks and Intercomputer Communications. pp.  3.1–3.6.
doi:10.1145/800001.811680. S2CID 17409102. Thus the set of IMP's, plus the telephone lines
and data sets would constitute a message switching network

 Press, Gil. "A Very Short History Of The Internet And The Web". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-01-
30.

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