ICS 218 -Multimedia Systems

and Applications

Lectures 16 - Multimedia Networking - Case

Studies - Token Ring, FDDI, ATM
Prof. Nalini Venkatasubramanian
nalini@ics.uci.edu

Multimedia Networking 1
Case Studies
❚ Token Ring
❚ FDDI
❚ ATM

Multimedia Networking 2
Token Ring
❙ Throughput - 4 or 16 Mbps
❙ Ring Topology
❙ Token Protocol
• special bit pattern (3 byte) called a token circulates around the
ring when all stations are idle.
• Station must get the token and remove it from the ring before
transmitting.
❙ Ring Interface has Two Operating Modes
• Listen
• Transmit
❙ Token Ring MAC Sub-layer Protocol
❘ (Sender Address, Destination Address)
❙ Handling of Multiple Priorities

Multimedia Networking 3
Token Ring (cont.)
❙ Priority Scheme
❘ Priority is stored in a token and in the frame header
(access control field)
❘ Priority operation
❘ Reservation of priority token
❘ fairness scheme
❙ Priority Allocation
❘ 0 -- application
❘ 1-3 -- free to use
❘ 4 -- used by bridges
❘ 5-6 -- reserved but not used
❘ 7 -- used by the ring management

Multimedia Networking 4
Provision of guarantees in
token ring
❙ Priority Scheme + fixed maximal propagation delay
❘ provide guaranteed transmission
❙ Predictable nature of station’s opportunity to transmit
❙ Token rotation time
❘ T_{trt} = τ _l + ∑ τ _i
∀τ _l is the ring latency,
i = 0..n-1
τ _i is the token holding time of station i

❙ Worst cast time to wait for a token

❘ T_{trt} <= τ _l + (N-1)τ _max
• T_trt^worst is approximately (N-1)τ _max.

Multimedia Networking 5
Delay Bounds
❙ Reservation mechanism
❘ helps to bound the delay of high priority traffic
❙ Delay Bound
❘ T_{access} <= 2x τ _max
❘ T_{access} <= (M-1) τ _mm + 2τ _max
∀τ _mm is the transmission time of the high priority
multimedia data.
❘ Using existing priority mechanism without any
modification allows for transmission of multimedia
streams.
❘ Using various priorities for continuous streams based
on importance.

Multimedia Networking 6
Resource reservation in token
ring
❚ Static Resource Reservation
❚ Dynamic Centralized Resource Reservation
❚ Dynamic Distributed Resource Reservation
❘ Available resource table, called art;
❘ Functional addresses
❘ Bandwidth allocation

Multimedia Networking 7
Effectiveness of MAC
protocols in token ring
❙ Bit length effectiveness measure
❘ Length = PropagationSpeedinFiberOptics/DataRate
• Length is approximately 2m/bit
❙ Early Token Release Principle
❘ Allows stations to release tokens before receiving
their frame back.
• After sending data, the sending side immediately
releases the token again. Several frames can be on the
ring at the same time.
• Due to this policy, the priority reservation mechanism
might be less effective.
• CHECK THIS!!!

Multimedia Networking 8
Fiber Distributed Data
Interface (FDDI)
❙ Successor of Token Ring - ring topology
❙ Throughput
❘ 100Mbps
❘ allows for distance of 100km, number of workstations
is 500.
❙ Error Rate
❘ 1/25,000,000,000
❙ FDDI supports different transmission modes
❘ synchronous mode
• Allows bandwidth reservation
❘ asynchronous mode
• behaves similar to token ring protocol

Multimedia Networking 9
FDDI Topology
❚ Dual Ring Topology
❘ One transmits clockwise, another counter-clockwise.
❘ Primary Ring provides data transmission
❘ Secondary Ring improves on fault tolerance
❚ Two Classes of individual stations
❙ Class A
❘ (Dual Attachment Station) connects both rings
• either directly or via a concentrator
❙ Class B
❘ (Single Attachment Station) connects to one ring
• via a concentrator to the primary ring.

Multimedia Networking 10
FDDI Architecture
❙ Physical Layer Protocol
• encodes and decodes information, provides timing to send
information.
• Medium independent, provides electron-photons
exchange, allows for transmission over fiber optics
❙ Station Management
• provides ring management, connection management and
monitors ring.
• Allows for addressing, bandwidth reservation and
configuration.
❙ Media Access Control protocol
• provides frame transmission and token handling.
Maximum frame length is 4500 bytes
• allows point-to-point communication, multicasting and
broadcasting.

Multimedia Networking 11
FDDI Time Token Rotation
Protocol
❙ Access protocol is Time Token Rotation
Protocol
❙ FDDI provides two types of service
• asynchronous and synchronous
❙ Synchronous service
❘ does preallocation of time (synchronous capacity)
and preallocation of bandwidth.
❙ Asynchronous service
❘ transmits messages only if certain time constraints
are valid.

Multimedia Networking 12
Time Token Rotation Protocol
❙ Target Token Rotation Time (TTRT)
❘ desired ring round trip delay of a packet.
❙ TTRT set during initialization of ring.
❘ Set in the station management component. Every station
holds this value
❘ FFDI spec - 4ms < TTRT < 165ms, typically around 50ms
❙ Token Rotation Time (TRT)
❘ real round trip delay of a token.
❘ Each station measures the TRT continuous and stores it.
❙ Asynchronous traffic can be sent only if TRT < TTRT.

Multimedia Networking 13
Transmission of Asynchronous
and Synchronous Traffic
❙ Asynchronous traffic can be sent only if
❘ the network has free capacity, i.e. TRT < TTRT
❙ Approaches to send asynchronous traffic
❘ Transmit non-real-time traffic ahead of real-time
traffic
• Need to determine if preemption of real-time traffic
violates guaranteed deadlines.
❘ Use restricted token (bandwidth reservation)
• sender and receiver negotiate the bandwidth through a
non-restricted token.
• When agreement is sent, sender removes non-restricted
token and replaces it with restricted token.
• Used for dialogue applications.

Multimedia Networking 14
Transmission of Asynchronous
and Synchronous Traffic
❙ Approaches to send synchronous traffic
❘ Deadlines must be met.
❘ Synchronous bandwidth is allocated to each station -
Synchronous Allocation (SA).
• If SA too small - node may not have enough network
access time to transmit messages - deadline violations.
• If SA is too large --> long TRT --> deadline violations
• TTRT must be chosen carefully. Small TTRT leads to less
utilization and limits network capacity. Large TTRT may
lead to deadline violations.
• Buffer size must be chosen carefully.

Multimedia Networking 15
Audio and Video Transmission
on FDDI
❙ Audio/video transmission use synchronous
traffic.
❙ There are two possibilities
❘ TRT < TTRT,
• then synchronous and asynchronous traffic are sent.
❘ TRT > TTRT,
• then only synchronous traffic is sent.

Multimedia Networking 16
Further properties of FDDI
❙ Multicasting (group addressing support).
❙ No synchronization of different streams.
❙ Packet size is important for decision of frame
size.
❙ Many implementations of FDDI do not support
synchronous mode.
❙ Restricted token should be used only for
transmission of continuous data.

Multimedia Networking 17
B-ISDN: Synchronous Mode
❙ Synchronous transmission mode (STM)
• only mode discussed wrt to broadband ISDN (Integrated
Services Data Networks) until 1987.
❙ Asynchronous transmission mode (ATM)
• introduced in 1988 for B-ISDN.
❙ STM is used in N_ISDN (Narrow-band ISDN).
• Connection-oriented mode with fixed assigned bandwidth
according to Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM).
• Slots are reserved for the duration of a connection.
❙ Various solutions to improve STM’s flexibility
• compression
• additional slots
• container solution

Multimedia Networking 18
B-ISDN: Asynchronous Mode
❙ ATM
❘ more flexible and efficient for transmission of variable data rate.
❘ Transmits data in 53 byte cells where 48 bytes carry payload
and 5 bytes carry header information.
❙ ATM allows systems to operate at a much higher data
rate due to the following characteristics
• No error protection or flow control on a link-to-link basis.
• ATM operates in a connection oriented mode - logical/virtual
connection setup phase allows network to perform resource
reservation
• Header functionality is reduced - mainly identification of virtual
connection.
• Information field length is relatively small - simplifies buffering.

Multimedia Networking 19
ATM Architecture
❙ ATM network has 2 major layers
❘ ATM Adaptation Layer (AAL)
• includes end-to-end protocols for various traffic classes
• CBR (Constant Bit Rate), VBR (Variable Bit Rate), ABR
(Arbitrary Bit Rate), UBR (Ubiquitous Bit Rate).
• Provides segmentation and reassembly of ATM Cells.
❘ ATM Layer
• Management, flow control, cell header
generation/removal, congestion control, cell address
translation.

Multimedia Networking 20
ATM Cell Information
❙ Virtual Connection
❘ identified by a number (not source, destination etc.)
❘ two subfields - VCI and VPI
❘ Virtual Path
• semi-permanent connection between endpoints.
❘ Virtual circuits
• refers to a connection, VCI assigned during connection setup
• local significance at link
• multiple VCIs for multicomponent services that can be
added and removed independently.
• When connection is released, VCI values of the involved
path are released and can be reused by other connections.

Multimedia Networking 21
ATM Cell Information
❙ Priorities - 2 types
• time priority- some cells may remain in the network longet
• semantic priority - some cells have a higher probability of
being lost.
• Priorities can be assigned on a per connection basis or a
per cell basis - support for QoS.
❙ Maintenance
• Payload Type Identification
❙ Multiple Access
• GFC - used to negotiate shared connections, e.g video
conferencing.
❙ Header Error Protection
• Generalization of Hamming code

Multimedia Networking 22
ATM Switching
❙ Past switching architectures
❘ for STM or packet switching are not applicable for
ATM due to
• High-speed at which the switch will operate.
• Statistical behavior of ATM streams.
❙ Service Requirements on ATM switches
❘ Bandwidth - high logical bandwidth, e.g. 150Mb/s
❘ Multicasting and broadcasting
• needed for video conferencing.
❘ Performance
• high throughput, low bit error rate, cell insertion, low
connection blocking, low cell loss probability, minimal
switching delays.

Multimedia Networking 23
ATM Switching (cont.)
❙ Switching Fabric
❘ consists of switching elements (2x2 ports at 155Mbps,
16x16 ports at 2.4Gbps).
❙ Switching Architecture
❘ Control part
• controls transport - which input to which output
• provides signaling of connection establishment with QoS
control/bandwidth reservation.
❘ Transport part
• provides switching function
❙ Switching Function
❘ allows for routing (space switching) and queueing (time
switching).

Multimedia Networking 24
ATM Routing
❙ ATM connection
❘ setup during connection establishment
• During this phase, VCI (Virtual Circuit Identifier) and VPI
(Virtual Path Identifier) are assigned along the connection
(route).
❙ Routing Function - 2 important metrics
❘ Routing Decision Time
• can be used either for routing connections ( connection-
based routing) to decide which connection to route or for
routing of cells (cell-based routing) or decide which cell to
route.
❘ Routing Information Place
• determines where the routing information is stored.
• Can be stored either in each cell through a routing tag or
in switching blocks via routing tables.

Multimedia Networking 25
ATM Host Interfacing
❙ Support of Variable Bit Rate Coding
❘ in STM networks
• VBR traffic must be translated into CBR traffic.
❘ in ATM networks
• VBR traffic is carried by the VBR service class.
❙ Support of Medium Layered Coding
❘ Synchronization
❘ Hierarchical encoding
❘ Non-hierarchical encoding

Multimedia Networking 26
ATM Connectivity to MAN/LAN
networks
❙ Connectivity of ATM-FDDI
❘ Problem - ATM cell size is incompatible with FDDI frame
size.
❘ Need translation function at the bridges.
❙ Connection-oriented vs. connectionless
❘ problems b/w ATM connection oriented concept and
MAN/LAN connectionless packet service.
❙ Possible semi-permanent solutions
• installation of semi-permanent connections using virtual path.
• provision of special message identification in AAL.
• Provision of very fast call setups.
❙ Connection-less servers
❙ Direct ATM connections via ATM-LAN

Multimedia Networking 27