Error Detection & Correction

There are many reasons such as noise, cross-talk etc., which may help data to get
corrupted during transmission. The upper layers work on some generalized view of
network architecture and are not aware of actual hardware data processing.Hence,
the upper layers expect error-free transmission between the systems. Most of the
applications would not function expectedly if they receive erroneous data.
Applications such as voice and video may not be that affected and with some
errors they may still function well.

Data-link layer uses some error control mechanism to ensure that frames (data bit
streams) are transmitted with certain level of accuracy. But to understand how
errors is controlled, it is essential to know what types of errors may occur.

Types of Errors
There may be three types of errors:

 Single bit error

In a frame, there is only one bit, anywhere though, which is corrupt.

 Multiple bits error

Frame is received with more than one bits in corrupted state.

 Burst error

Frame contains more than1 consecutive bits corrupted.

Error control mechanism may involve two possible ways:

 Error detection
  Error correction

Error Detection

Errors in the received frames are detected by means of Parity Check and Cyclic
Redundancy Check (CRC). In both cases, few extra bits are sent along with actual
data to confirm that bits received at other end are same as they were sent. If the
counter-check at receiver’ end fails, the bits are considered corrupted.

Parity Check

One extra bit is sent along with the original bits to make number of 1s either even
in case of even parity, or odd in case of odd parity.

The sender while creating a frame counts the number of 1s in it. For example, if
even parity is used and number of 1s is even then one bit with value 0 is added.
This way number of 1s remains even.If the number of 1s is odd, to make it even a
bit with value 1 is added.

The receiver simply counts the number of 1s in a frame. If the count of 1s is even
and even parity is used, the frame is considered to be not-corrupted and is
accepted. If the count of 1s is odd and odd parity is used, the frame is still not
corrupted.

If a single bit flips in transit, the receiver can detect it by counting the number of
1s. But when more than one bits are erro neous, then it is very hard for the receiver
to detect the error.

Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)

CRC is a different approach to detect if the received frame contains valid data.
This technique involves binary division of the data bits being sent. The divisor is
generated using polynomials. The sender performs a division operation on the bits
being sent and calculates the remainder. Before sending the actual bits, the sender
adds the remainder at the end of the actual bits. Actual data bits plus the remainder
is called a codeword. The sender transmits data bits as codewords.
At the other end, the receiver performs division operation on codewords using the
same CRC divisor. If the remainder contains all zeros the data bits are accepted,
otherwise it is considered as there some data corruption occurred in transit.

Error Correction

In the digital world, error correction can be done in two ways:

 Backward Error Correction When the receiver detects an error in the data
received, it requests back the sender to retransmit the data unit.
 Forward Error Correction When the receiver detects some error in the
data received, it executes error-correcting code, which helps it to auto-
recover and to correct some kinds of errors.

The first one, Backward Error Correction, is simple and can only be efficiently
used where retransmitting is not expensive. For example, fiber optics. But in case
of wireless transmission retransmitting may cost too much. In the latter case,
Forward Error Correction is used.

To correct the error in data frame, the receiver must know exactly which bit in the
frame is corrupted. To locate the bit in error, redundant bits are used as parity bits
for error detection.For example, we take ASCII words (7 bits data), then there
could be 8 kind of information we need: first seven bits to tell us which bit is error
and one more bit to tell that there is no error.
Error Detection Techniques

There are three main techniques for detecting errors in frames: Parity
Check, Checksum, and Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC).

Parity Check

The parity check is done by adding an extra bit, called parity bit to the data to
make a number of 1s either even in case of even parity or odd in case of odd parity.

While creating a frame, the sender counts the number of 1s in it and adds the parity
bit in the following way

 In case of even parity: If a number of 1s is even then parity bit value is 0. If

the number of 1s is odd then parity bit value is 1.
 In case of odd parity: If a number of 1s is odd then parity bit value is 0. If a
number of 1s is even then parity bit value is 1.

On receiving a frame, the receiver counts the number of 1s in it. In case of even
parity check, if the count of 1s is even, the frame is accepted, otherwise, it is
rejected. A similar rule is adopted for odd parity check.

The parity check is suitable for single bit error detection only.

Checksum

In this error detection scheme, the following procedure is applied

 Data is divided into fixed sized frames or segments.

 The sender adds the segments using 1’s complement arithmetic to get the
sum. It then complements the sum to get the checksum and sends it along
with the data frames.
 The receiver adds the incoming segments along with the checksum using 1’s
complement arithmetic to get the sum and then complements it.
 If the result is zero, the received frames are accepted; otherwise, they are
discarded.
Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)

Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) involves binary division of the data bits being
sent by a predetermined divisor agreed upon by the communicating system. The
divisor is generated using polynomials.

 Here, the sender performs binary division of the data segment by the divisor.
It then appends the remainder called CRC bits to the end of the data
segment. This makes the resulting data unit exactly divisible by the divisor.
 The receiver divides the incoming data unit by the divisor. If there is no
remainder, the data unit is assumed to be correct and is accepted. Otherwise,
it is understood that the data is corrupted and is therefore rejected.

Error Correction Techniques

Error correction techniques find out the exact number of bits that have been
corrupted and as well as their locations. There are two principle ways

 Backward Error Correction (Retransmission) − If the receiver detects an

error in the incoming frame, it requests the sender to retransmit the frame. It
is a relatively simple technique. But it can be efficiently used only where
retransmitting is not expensive as in fiber optics and the time for
retransmission is low relative to the requirements of the application.

 Forward Error Correction − If the receiver detects some error in the

incoming frame, it executes error-correcting code that generates the actual
frame. This saves bandwidth required for retransmission. It is inevitable in
real-time systems. However, if there are too many errors, the frames need to
be retransmitted.

The four main error correction codes are

 Hamming Codes
 Binary Convolution Code
 Reed – Solomon Code
 Low-Density Parity-Check Code
What is network redundancy?
Network redundancy is the process of providing multiple paths for traffic so that data
can keep flowing even in the event of a failure. Put simply: more redundancy equals
more reliability. It also helps with distributed site management. The idea is that if one
device fails, another can automatically take over. By adding a little bit of complexity,
we reduce the probability that a failure will take the network down.
But complexity is also an enemy of reliability. The more complex something is, the
harder it is to understand, the greater the chance of human error, and the greater the
chance of a software bug causing a new failure mode. So, when designing a network,
it’s important to balance redundancy against complexity.

What are the different types of network redundancy?

There are two main forms that network redundancy can take. The first is fault
tolerance, which uses full hardware redundancy—there’s at least one complete
duplicate of the system hardware running side-by-side with the primary system.
Should one system fail, the other will take over simultaneously, with no loss of
service.
The second type of network redundancy is high availability. In this structure, rather
than duplicate all of the physical hardware, a cluster of servers is run together. The
servers monitor each other and have failover capacities, so if there is a problem on
one server, a backup can take action.

The different types of network redundancies include:

 Multiple Spanning Trees (MST)

 Ring Networks

 Diverse Trunking

 Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)