Week # 04

Data Communication & Network

Powerpoint Templates
Week 4: Course Plan
 Switching Strategies
 Circuit Switched Networks
 Packet Switched Networks
 Data Communication Terminologies
 Switches are devices capable of creating
temporary connections between two or more
devices linked to the switch
 occupy the same place in the network as hubs.
Unlike hubs
 examine each packet and process it accordingly
rather than simply repeating the signal to all ports
How to connect a set of devices to make one-to-one
communication possible?
• Mesh Topology: a point-to-point connection between each
pair of devices or
• Star Topology: between a central device and every other
device
• Impractical and wasteful methods in context of large
networks
• Too many link requiring cost-efficient infrastructure
• Majority of links idle most of the time
How to connect set of devices to make one-to-one
communication possible?
• Topologies employing multipoint connections (like a bus)
are not possible
◦ the distances between devices and the total number of
devices increase beyond the capacities of the media and
equipment

 Switching is a better solution

 Switched Network is a series of interlinked nodes which
are called switches
 In a switched network, some switching nodes are
connected to the end systems (like computers,
telephones), others are used only for routing
 Circuit switching
 Packet switching
 designed in 1878 in order to send telephone calls on a
dedicated channel
 the channel can not be used by any other data or phone calls
◦ So it remains open and in use throughout the whole call
◦ Connection between node A and M through switch IV
and III
 End systems directly connected to a switch
 three phases in circuit switching
◦ Establish
◦ Transfer
◦ Disconnect
 The telephone message is not broken
◦ It is sent all together
 The message arrives in the same order
◦ as it was sent originally
 Electronic signals pass through many switches before a
connection is established (In modern circuit-switched
networks)
 once a call has been set up, a dedicated path
between both ends exists and will continue to
exist until the call is finished
 need to set up an end-to-end path before any
data can be sent
 The elapsed time between the end of dialing
and the start of ringing can easily be 10 sec
 During this time interval, the telephone system
is hunting for a path
 before data transmission can even begin
◦ the call request signal must propagate all the way to
the destination and be acknowledged
 Long setup times are undesirable in many
computer applications like point-of-sale
credit verification
 During a call (transfer phase), switches can not be used by
any other network traffic
◦ Hence, the resources remain dedicated to the circuit during
the entire transfer of data and the entire message follows
the same path
 A circuit-switched network is excellent for data that needs a
constant link from end-to-end, for example, real-time video
 Circuit switching can be analog or digital
 There is a gradual shift away from circuit-switched
networks
◦ As the use of the Internet for voice and video is expanding
Example of circuit switching:
- Pick up your land phone and dial your friend

- At that point, the provider creates a dedicated circuit for

that session and connects you to your friend's telephone
- No matter how long you keep the line open with your
friend
- the circuit will remain, and
- packets flowing between both telephones will always
follow the same path
Advantages
 dedicated circuit to the call
 no interference, no sharing
 full bandwidth guaranteed for the entire duration of
the call
 Guaranteed quality of service (minimal delay at each
switch)
Disadvantages
 Low efficiency (reservation): the resources may remain
unused for a lot of the call
 In case no data is being sent, even then the dedicated line remains
open
 relatively long time is required to set up the circuit
 the network may become unstable or unavailable
 If crises or disaster occurs
 primarily developed for voice traffic rather than data
traffic
 Packets are sent as soon as they are available
 the message is broken into small data packets
 no need to set up a dedicated path in advance
 It is up to routers to use store-and-forward transmission to send
each packet on its way to the destination on its own
 Packets seek out the most efficient route to travel as
circuits become available
◦ not necessarily the shortest route
 There is no fixed path
◦ Different packets can follow different paths
◦ Packets may arrive out of order
 It places a tight upper limit on the size of packets
◦ This ensures that no user can monopolize any transmission
line for very long (e.g.,many milliseconds)
◦ Thus, it can handle interactive traffic
 The store-and-forward delay of accumulating a
packet in the router’s memory before it is sent on
to the next router exceeds that of circuit switching
◦ In a packet-switched network, there is no
resource reservation; resources are allocated
on demand
 However, It reduces delay since the first packet of
a long message can be forwarded before the
second one has fully arrived
 Connectionless networks: The switch (packet switch) does not keep
information about the connection state
◦ no setup or teardown phases
 Each switch has routing table based on the destination address (in the
header of the packet)
 Destination address remains the same during the entire journey of the
packet
 a header address with each packet which
◦ tells it where its final destination is
◦ describes the sequence for reassembly at the destination in order to
putting back the packets into the correct order
 One packet also contains details of how many packets should
be arriving
◦ so that the destination knows if one packet has failed to arrive
 If a packet fails to arrive, the destination sends a message
back to the source asking for retransmission of the missing
packet
Example of Packet Switching:
- switch on your PC and connect to your favorite site

- The site offers a number of applications you can download

- Start downloading one application at a time

- Each packet has to find its own route to the destination,

i.e., your computer
- Each packet finds its way using the information it carries,
such as the source and destination IP addresses
- If congestion occurs in the network
- the routers responsible for routing packets between
networks automatically select different paths to ensure
that data is transferred as required
Advantages
 Security
 Use of Bandwidth at full potential
 Devices of different speeds can communicate
 Availability
 no waiting for a direct connection to become available
 During a crisis or disaster
 e-mails and texts can still be sent in the situation when
the public telephone network might stop working
Disadvantages
 Delay: Under heavy use
 Loss of data packets or they become corrupted
 reliable transfer requires protocols
 Not so good for some types data streams
 e.g. real-time video streams can lose frames due to the
way packets arrive out of sequence
 Circuit switching: carry
bit streams
a. establishes a dedicated
circuit
b. links reserved for use
by communication
channel
c. send/receive bit stream
at constant rate
d. example: original
telephone network
• Packet switching: store-and-
forward messages
a. operates on discrete
blocks of data
b. utilizes resources
dynamically according
to traffic demand
c. send/receive messages
at variable rate
d. example: Internet
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In Circuit and Packet Switched Network
 The trade-off is between guaranteed service and
wasting resources versus not guaranteeing service
and not wasting resources
Data Communication Terminologies

Addressing and Routing

Address: byte-string that identifies a node
If transmission facility is shared by two or more devices, source
must specify the identity or the address of the destination system
Usually unique
Routing: forwarding decisions
Process of determining how to forward messages to
the destination node based on its address
Types of addresses
unicast: node-specific
broadcast: all nodes on a network
multicast: some subset of nodes on a network
 Data Communication Terminologies
Transmission System Utilization
We need to make efficient use of transmission facilities that are
shared among a number of communicating devices
For example: Techniques like Multiplexing allow multiple users
to share total capacity of a transmission medium

Interface: A device must have an interface with the transmission

system/transmission medium
Signal Generation
 Electromagnetic signals travel over transmission medium
 Once an interface is established, signal generation is required to
communicate
 Signals are capable of being propagated over transmission
medium and interpretable as data at the receiver
 Data Communication Terminologies
Synchronization means that the receiver must be able to determine
when a signal begins to arrive and when it ends
 transmission and reception should be properly synchronized
 It must also know the duration of each signal element
 In other words transmitter and receiver should have an agreement
on the nature as well as timing of the signals
Exchange Management: If the data needs to be exchanged in both
directions over a period of time, both parties must cooperate as
follows:
 Whether both devices must transmit simultaneously or take turns
 Amount of data to be sent at one time
 Format of the data
 What to do when an error occurs
 Data Communication Terminologies
Error Detection and Correction
 In all communication systems, there is a potential risk for errors
and impairments
 Signals are distorted to some extent before reaching their
destination
 Error detection & correction needs to be employed where a change
in say, the contents of a file, cannot be tolerated
Flow Control: To make sure that source does not overwhelm
destination by sending data faster than it can be handled and
processed
Recovery: If a data transmission is interrupted due to a fault
somewhere in the system, recovery techniques are needed
 The objective is either to resume activity at the point of
interruption and to restore the state of the system to what it was
prior to the interruption
 Data Communication Terminologies
Security is very important issue in a Data Communication System.
The sender needs to be assured that
 Only the intended receiver receives the data
 Data is delivered unaltered
Message Format
 An agreement between two parties as to the form of the data to be
exchanged or transmitted
 For example, both sides must use the same binary code for
characters