Switched WANs

Switched WAN network is a network that has several end nodes. There are
two kinds of WAN networks point-to-point WAN network which connects two
end nodes using a dedicated communication line and the other is switched
WAN network that is a mesh of a point-to-point network that provides access
to several end nodes.

Switched WAN Technologies

1. Introduction
2. X.25
3. Frame Relay
4. ATM

Introduction
In the switched WAN network, the data sent from a source node is routed to
the destination node by being switched from one node to another in the
network. Switched WAN networks are suitable for long-distance transmission.

Switched WAN network uses a connection-oriented technology where the

switches are used to establish the path between source and destination node.
If a source node wants to send data to the destination node at first a path is
established between them and then the data is transmitted over the
established path. Once the communication is over the path between the
sender and receiver is terminated.

The switched WAN can be a circuit-switched network or packet-switched

network.

1. Circuit Switched Network

In the circuit-switched network, when the source node wants to communicate

with the destination node, the physical connection is established from the
source node to the destination node. The source then transmits the entire
message over this physical connection.

Once the message is transferred the source node informs the network to
terminate the connection. The circuit switching is always applied at the
physical layer.

2. Packet Switching

In packet switching the entire message to be transmitted is divided into small

chunks which refer to as a packet. Now each packet travels the optimum route
from source to destination.

At the destination, all the packets are assembled and then forwarded to the
upper layer. The packet switching is performed at the network layer.

Frame Relay
Frame relay is used to implement switched WANs which uses
packet-switched technology. The frame relay standard was introduced to
replace the slow X.25 standard. The frame relay provides services at the
physical layer and data link layer.

In frame relay as such, there are no specifications for the physical layer. The
implementer can make use of whatever is available as it supports all the
protocols identified by ANSI. At the data link layer, the error detection
mechanism is implemented and the error control mechanism is left for the
upper layers.

In frame relay, the error correction is not performed at every hop of a WAN
network instead the error correction is left for the communicating end nodes.

ATM (Asynchronous Transmission Mode)

The ATM is referred to as a cell relay protocol. ATM is a standard used to
implement a switched WAN which uses packet switching technology. Similar
to X.25 and frame relay ATM also transmits data in small chunks which is
referred to as cells.

The ATM uses fixed-sized and fixed-format cells which improves the
transmission speed of the cells over the high-speed network. Entire data is
packed into fixed-sized cells. The cells from different end nodes are
multiplexed using asynchronous time-division multiplexing and are routed over
the transmission path.

ATM uses the virtual circuit to transmit cells from one node to another node.
The transmission path has several virtual paths and inside each virtual path,
there are multiple virtual circuits that are used to carry the cells from source to
destination.

Consider transmission path as a collection of all the highways, where all the
highways connect two cities. Among this set of highways, a single highway is
a virtual path and a lane in a highway is a virtual circuit.

All cells from the same message travel through the same virtual circuit and
maintain the same order till they reach the destination node.