UNIT – I (NOTES INDEX)

FUNDAMENTALS & LINK LAYER

Building a Networks – Requirements – Layering and Protocols – Internet Architecture –
Network Software – Performance – Link Layer services – Framing – Error Detection – Flow
control
Reference: Topic wise Questions
1. Requirements:
Requirements for building a computer network (Q)

2. Layering and Protocols

 Layering and its advantages (Q)
 Protocol (Q)
 Network architecture.(Q)
 Encapsulation (Q)
 Layers of OSI model (Q)

3. Internet Architecture
 Network Architecture (Q)
 Protocol Graph (Q)
 Layers of TCP/IP Architecture

4. Network Software
 Application Programming Interface (Socket) (Q)

5. Performance
 Factors that Affect Performance of the Network (Q)

6. Link Layer services (framing, error detection & flow control)

FRAMING :
 Framing ( Q)
- Byte-oriented Protocol
- Bit-Oriented Protocol
ERROR DETECTION:
 Errors and its Types (Q&Q)
 Error Detection and Correction (Q)
 Vertical Redundancy Check (VRC) (Q)
 Longitudinal Redundancy Check (LRC) (Q)
 Error Detection Methods (Q)
FLOW CONTROL
 Flow control. (Q)
 Acknowledgement.(Q)
 Automatic Repeat Request (Q)
 Various Flow Control Mechanisms (Q)
- Stop & Wait
- Sliding Window ARQ
 UNIT – II (NOTES INDEX)

MEDIA ACCESS & INTERNET NETWORKING

Media Access control – Ethernet (802.3) – Wireless LANs – 802.11 – Bluetooth – Switching and
Bridging – Basic Internetworking (IP, CIDR, ARP, DHCP, ICMP)

Reference: Topic wise Questions

1. Ethernet (802.3)
 IEEE 802.3 standard or Ethernet (Q)
 Minimum Frame Length in Ethernet – 64bytes (Q)
 Advantages and Disadvantages (Q)

2. Wireless LAN or IEEE 802.11

 Functioning of Wireless LAN Or IEEE 802.11 (Q)

3. Bluetooth (Q)

4. Switching and Bridging

 Switch and its Function (Q)
 Switching Techniques (Q)
- Datagrams Switching
- Virtual Circuit Switching
- Source Routings

 Bridging and Learning Bridges

- Bridge (Q)
- Types – Static and Learning Bridges ( Q & Q)
- Drawback in learning bridge (Q)
- Spanning tree Algorithm ( Q) Bridging
- Virtual LAN (Q)
- Pros & Cons of a bridge (Q & Q)

5. Internet Protocol (IP)

 Internetwork (Q)
 Internetworking Protocol (Q)

6. Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) ( Q & Q)

7. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) – (Q)

8. Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) – (Q)

9. Classless Interdomain Routing (CIDR) (or) Superneting– (Q)

10. Subnetting – (Q)

 UNIT – III (NOTES INDEX)

ROUTING
Routing (RIP, OSPF, metrics) – Switch Basics – Global Internet (Areas, BGP, IPV6), Multicast
– Addresses – Multicast routing (DVMRP, PIM)

Reference: Topic wise Questions

1. Routing Information Protocol (RIP):

 Distance Vector Routing (or) Routing Information Protocol (Qno.3)

2. Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Routing Protocols

 Link State Routing (or) OSPF (Qno.15)

3. Routing Metrics
 Routing Metrics in ARPANET (Qno.17)

4. Switch Basics
 Switch Functions (Qno.16)

5. Global Internet
a. Areas (Qno.15)
b. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP - 4) (Qno.6)
c. Internet Protocol Ver.6 – IPV6 (Qno.7)

6. Multicast Addresses
- IP Multicasting (Qno.14)
- Multicast Addressing (Qno.13)

7. Multicast routing protocols (Qno.12)

- Distance-Vector Multicast (DVMRP)
- Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM)
 UNIT – IV (NOTES INDEX)

TRANSPORT LAYER

Overview of Transport layer – UDP – Reliable byte stream (TCP) – Connection Management –
Flow Control – Retransmission – TCP Congestion control – Congestion Avoidance (DECbit,
RED) – QOS – Application Requirements.

Reference: Topic wise Questions

1. Overview of Transport Layer
 Distance Vector Routing (or) Routing Information Protocol (Qno.1)

2. User Datagram Protocol – UDP

 Simple Demultiplexer or UDP (Qno.5)

3. Reliable byte stream (TCP)

 Transmission Control Protocol (Qno.6)

4. Connection Management
 Connection Establishment and Connection Termination (Qno.6)

5. Flow Control
 TCP Flow control or Adaptive flow control (Qno.10)

6. Retransmission
 Silly Window Syndrome (Qno.11)
- Nagle’s Algorithm
 Adaptive Retransmission (Qno.12)
- Original Algorithm
- Karn/Partridge Algorithm
- Jacobson/Karels Algorithm

7. TCP Congestion control

 Congestion. (Qno.13)
 Flow control vs Congestion control (Qno.14)
 TCP congestion control mechanisms (Qno.15)
- AIMD algorithm
- Slow-Start algorithm
- Fast Retransmit and Fast Recovery

8. Congestion Avoidance
 Congestion. (Qno.13)
 Flow control vs Congestion control (Qno.14)
 TCP Avoidance algorithms (Qno.15)
- DECbit
- Random Early Detection (RED)
- explicit congestion notification (Q)
9. QOS (Qno.29)
10. Application Requirements (Qno.30)
 UNIT – V (NOTES INDEX)

APPLICATION LAYER
Traditional applications – Electronic Mail (SMTO, POP3, IMAP, MIME) – HTTP – Web
Services – DNS – SNMP.

Topic wise Questions

1. Traditional Applications
 Electronic Mail (SMTP, MIME, IMAMP)
- Components of an Email system and the Protocols used (Qno.2)
- Functions of POP3 (Qno.3)
- Advantages of IMAP over POP3(Qno.4)
2. HTTP
 Hypertext (Qno.5)
 WWW or HTTP protocol (Qno.6)

3. Web Services - (Qno.10)

- Web Service Description Language (WSDL)
- SOAP
- REpresentational State Transfer (REST)

4. DNS
 Role of Domain Name Services (DNS) in computer Network (Qno.12)

5. SNMP
 SNMP (Qno.15)
ENCODING TECHNIQUES

Digital data to digital signals

A digital signal is sequence of discrete , discontinuous voltage pulses. Each pulses a signal
element. Encoding scheme is an important factor in how successfully the receiver interprets the
incoming signal.

Encoding Techniques

Following are several ways to map data bits to signal elements.

 Non return to zero(NRZ) NRZ codes share the property that voltage level is constant
during a bit interval. High level voltage = bit 1 and Low level voltage = bit 0. A problem
arises when there is a long sequence of 0s or 1s and the volatage level is maintained at the
same value for a long time. This creates a problem on the recieving end because now, the
clock synchronization is lost due to lack of any transitions and hence, it is difficult to
determine the exact number of 0s or 1s in this sequence.

The two variations are as follows:

1. NRZ-Level: In NRZ-L encoding, the polarity of the signal changes only when the
incoming signal changes from a 1 to a 0 or from a 0 to a 1. NRZ-L method looks
just like the NRZ method, except for the first input one data bit. This is because
NRZ does not consider the first data bit to be a polarity change, where NRZ-L
does.
2. NRZ-Inverted: Transition at the beginning of bit interval = bit 1 and No
Transition at beginning of bit interval = bit 0 or vicecersa. This technique is
known as differential encoding.

NRZ-I has an advantage over NRZ-L. Consider the situation when two data wires are
wrongly connected in each other's place.In NRZ-L all bit sequences will get reversed
(B'coz voltage levels get swapped).Whereas in NAZ-I since bits are recognized by
transition the bits will be correctly interpreted. A disadvantage in NRZ codes is that a
string of 0's or 1's will prevent synchronization of transmitter clock with receiver clock
and a separate clock line need to be provided.

 Biphase encoding: It has following characteristics:

1. Modulation rate twice that of NRZ and bandwidth correspondingly greater.
(Modulation is the rate at which signal level is changed).
2. Because there is predictable transition during each bit time,the receiver can
synchronize on that transition i.e. clock is extracted from the signal itself.
3. Since there can be transition at the beginning as well as in the middle of the bit
interval the clock operates at twice the data transfer rate.

Types of Encoding -->

 o Biphase-manchester: Transition from high to low in middle of interval = 1 and
Transition from low to high in middle of interval = 0
o Differential-manchester: Always a transition in middle of interval. No transition
at beginning of interval=1 and Transition at beginning of interval = 0

o 4B/5B Encoding: In Manchester encoding scheme , there is a transition after

every bit. It means that we must have clocks with double the speed to send same
amount of data as in NRZ encodings. In other words, we may say that only 50%
of the data is sent. This performance factor can be significantly improved if we
use a better encoding scheme. This scheme may have a transition after fixed
number of bits instead of every other bit. Like if we have a transition after every
four bits, then we will be sending 80% data of actual capacity. This is a
significant improvement in the performance.

Error Correction

In 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 uses an error-correcting code, which helps it to auto-recover and 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 which bit (location of the bit in the
frame) is corrupted. To locate the bit in error, redundant bits are used as parity bits for error
detection. If for example, we take ASCII words (7 bits data), then there could be 8 kind of
information we need. Up to seven information to tell us which bit is in error and one more to tell
that there is no error.

For m data bits, r redundant bits are used. r bits can provide 2r combinations of information. In
m+r bit codeword, there is possibility that the r bits themselves may get corrupted. So the
number of r bits used must inform about m+r bit locations plus no-error information, i.e. m+r+1.