LO1 Plan and Design internet infrastructures

Introduction to internet infrastructures

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard
Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve several billion users worldwide.
It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and
government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic,
wireless and optical networking technologies.
Most traditional communications media including telephone, music, film, and television are
being reshaped or redefined by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as voice over
Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Internet Protocol television (IPTV).
Newspaper, book and other print publishing are adapting to Web site technology, or are
reshaped into blogging and web feeds.
The origins of the Internet reach back to research commissioned by the United States
government in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks.

The Internet Infrastructure: General perspective

Traditionally, the Internet infrastructure has been divided into backbone and access networks.
the interface between these two parts of the infrastructure being managed by Internet Service
Providers (ISPs).
Backbones are typically fiber optic trunk lines.
The trunk line has multiple fiber optic cables combined together to increase the capacity.
Fiber optic cables are optical carrier, such as OC-3, OC-12 or OC-48. An OC-3 line is capable of
transmitting 155 Mbps while an OC-48 can transmit 2,488 Mbps (2.488 Gbps).
Backbone operators serve mainly ISPs.
Smaller backbones examples are line that comes from ISP to the organization.( the line carrier
capacity is smaller compared to large backbones.
Large backbones are fiber optic lines between two internet ISPs.
There are less than 50 national backbones in the entire North America.
The backbone business requires very large investments and enjoys considerable economies of
scale due to the cost of installing fiber.
Small backbone operators do not usually install fiber cables themselves, preferring to lease dark
fibers from others.
The access infrastructure, connecting businesses and households to regional and national
backbones, is currently the most critical aspect of the communications networks that support the
Internet. Although large corporations can afford sophisticated (large local networks) high-
capacity access links.
The rollout of broadband access network is still in its initial phase and it requires a large
investment in the years to come in order to bring the benefits of the Internet and advanced data
services to households and small businesses.
Internet service providers constitute the Interface between backbones and access networks. Their
main service is to terminate a large number of access connections from their customers and to
offer connectivity to national backbones.( because when we consider backbone we are
considering fiber optic line which providers connection between large internet capacity provided
by ISPs.)
Today, access connections are in their large majority switched telephone circuits using voce-
grade modems. These narrowband access links are terminated at modem banks and statistically
multiplexed into a packet-switched IP network, allowing a large-number of connections to
efficiently share a high-speed pipe to a backbone.( local access switched network is connected in
to modem and from the modem fiber lines is installed in to ISPs backbones ).
The core services offered by ISPs include also administration of IP addresses for their
customers and management of cashing systems, which are used to improve the speed at which
content is delivered.

ISP
When compared to the access or the backbone, the market for ISPs is very competitive with
more than 8,000 companies in the US alone.
Many ISPs prefer to outsource the physical access to the Internet from wholesalers (world wide
internet provider) and focus on the business of reselling access and other higher-margin
complementary services to their customers.
Technology
Protocols
The communications infrastructure of the Internet consists of its hardware components and a
system of software layers that control various aspects of the architecture. While the hardware can
often be used to support other software systems,
User her chapter 6 from slid 2-5
The Internet standards describe a framework known as the Internet protocol suite. This is a
model architecture that divides methods (communication ) into a layered system of protocols.
IP addressing