Introduction

The transport layer is the fourth layer from the

bottom in the OSI reference model.
It is responsible for message delivery from process
running in source computer to the process running in
the destination computer.
Transport layer does not perform any function in the
intermediate nodes.
It is active only in the end systems.

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 Introduction
Data Link Layer is responsible for delivery of frames
between two neighboring nodes over a link.
This is called node-to-node delivery.
Network Layer is responsible for delivery of datagrams
between two hosts.
This is called host-to-host delivery.
Transport Layer is responsible for delivery of entire
message from one process running on source to another
process running on destination.
This is called process-to process delivery.

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Types of data deliveries
 Transport Layer Design Issues
The transport layer delivers the message from one process to
another process running on two different hosts.
Thus, it has to perform number of functions to ensure the accurate
delivery of message.
The various functions of transport layer are:
Establishing, Maintaining & Releasing Connection
Addressing
Data Transfer
Flow Control
Error Control
Congestion Control

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 Transport Layer Design Issues
Establishing, Maintaining & Releasing
Connection:
The transport layer establishes, maintains & releases
end-to-end transport connection on the request of
upper layers.
Establishing a connection involves allocation of buffers
for storing user data, synchronizing the sequence
numbers of packets etc.
A connection is released at the request of upper layer.

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 Transport Layer Design Issues
Addressing:
In order to deliver the message from one process to
another, an addressing scheme is required.
Several process may be running on a system at a time.
In order to identify the correct process out of the
various running processes, transport layer uses an
addressing scheme called port number.
Each process has a specific port number.

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 Transport Layer Design Issues
Data Transfer:
Transport layer breaks user data into smaller units and
attaches a transport layer header to each unit forming a
TPDU (TransPort Layer Data Unit).
The TPDU is handed over to the network layer for its
delivery to destination.
The TPDU header contains port number, sequence
number, acknowledgement number, checksum and
other fields.

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 Transport Layer Design Issues
Flow Control:
Like data link layer, transport layer also performs flow
control.
However, flow control at transport layer is performed
end-to-end rather than node-to-node.
Transport Layer uses a sliding window protocol to
perform flow control.

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 Transport Layer Design Issues
Error Control:
Transport layer also provides end-to-end error control
facility.
Transport layer deals with several different types of
errors:
Error due to damaged bits.

Error due to non delivery of TPDUs.

Error due to duplicate delivery of TPDUs.

Error due to delivery of TPDU to a wrong destination.

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 Transport Layer Design Issues
Congestion Control:
Transport layer also handles congestion in the
networks.
Several different congestion control algorithms are
used to avoid congestion.

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 Transport Layer Services
Transport layer protocols can provide two types of
services:
Connection Oriented Service
Connectionless Service

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 Transport Layer Services
Connection Oriented Service:
In connection oriented service, a connection is first
established between sender and the receiver.
Then, transfer of user data takes place.
At the end, connection is released.
The connection oriented service is generally reliable.
Transport layer protocols that provide connection
oriented service are TCP and SCTP (Stream Control
Transmission Protocol).

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 Transport Layer Services
Connectionless Service:
In the service, the packets are sent from sender to
receiver without the establishment of connection.
In such service, packets are not numbered.
The packets may be lost, corrupted, delayed or
disordered.
Connectionless service is unreliable.
Transport layer protocol that provides this service is
UDP.

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 Elements of Transport Protocols
Addressing:
In order to deliver data from one process to another,
address is required.
In order to deliver data from one node to another, MAC
address is required.
Such an address is implemented at Data Link Layer
and is called Physical Addressing.

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 Elements of Transport Protocols
Addressing (Cont.):
In order to deliver data from one network to another, IP
address is required.
Such an address is implemented at Network Layer and
is called Logical Addressing.
Similarly, in order to deliver data from a process
running on source to process running on destination,
transport layer defines the Service Point Address or
Port Numbers.

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 Elements of Transport Protocols
Port Numbers:
Each communicating process is assigned a specific
port number.
In order to select among multiple processes running on
a destination host, a port number is required.
The port numbers are 16-bit integers between 0 and
65,535.

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 Elements of Transport Protocols
Port Numbers (Cont.):
Port numbers are assigned by Internet Assigned
Number Authority (IANA).
IANA has divided the port numbers in three categories:
Well Known Ports: The ports ranging from 0 to 1023. For e.g.:
HTTP: 80, SMTP: 25, FTP: 21.

Registered Ports: The ports ranging from 1024 to 49,151.

These are not controlled by IANA.

Dynamic Ports: The ports ranging from 49,152 to 65,535.

These can be used by any process.

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IANA ranges
 Elements of Transport Protocols
Socket Address:
Socket address is a combination of IP address and port
number.
In order to provide communication between two
different processes on different networks, both IP
address and port number, i.e. socket address is
required.

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Socket address
Port numbers
IP addresses versus port numbers
 Elements of Transport Protocols
Multiplexing & Demultiplexing:
A network connection can be shared by various
applications running on a system.
There may be several running processes that want to
send data and only one transport layer connection
available, then transport layer protocols may perform
multiplexing.
The protocol accepts the messages from different
processes having their respective port numbers, and
add headers to them.

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 Elements of Transport Protocols
Multiplexing & Demultiplexing (Cont.):
The transport layer at the receiver end performs
demultiplexing to separate the messages for different
processes.
After checking for errors, the headers of messages are
dropped and each message is handed over to the
respective processes based on their port numbers.

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 Elements of Transport Protocols
Connection Establishment:
Before communicating, the source device must first
determine the availability of the other to exchange data.
Path must be found through the network by which the
data can be sent.
This is called Connection Establishment.

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 Elements of Transport Protocols
Connection Establishment (Cont.):
Connection establishment involves Three-Way
Handshaking mechanism:
The source sends a connection request packet to the
destination.

The destination returns a confirmation packet back to the

source.

The source returns a packet acknowledging the confirmation.

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Connection establishment using three-way handshaking
A SYN segment cannot carry data, but it
consumes one sequence number.
Data transfer
 Elements of Transport Protocols
Connection Release:
Once all of the data has been transferred, the
connection must be released.
It also requires a Three-Way Handshaking
mechanism:
The source sends a disconnect request packet to the
destination.
The destination returns a confirmation packet back to the
source.
The source returns a packet acknowledging the confirmation.

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Connection termination using three-way handshaking
The FIN segment consumes one
sequence number if it does
not carry data.
 Transport Layer Protocols
Transport layer provides two types of services:
Connection Oriented Service
Connectionless Service

For this, transport layer defines two different

protocols:
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

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 Transmission Control Protocol
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a connection
oriented protocol that provides reliable services
between processes on different hosts.
It uses the services of lower layer which provide
connectionless and unreliable service.

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 Transmission Control Protocol
The basic features of TCP are:
It provides efficient method for numbering different bytes of
data.
It provides stream data transfer.
It offers reliability.
It provides efficient flow control.
It provides full duplex operation.
It provides multiplexing.
It provides connection oriented service.

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 TCP Segment
TCP segment is the unit of data transferred between
two processes.
Each TCP segment consists of two parts:
Header Part
Data Part

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 Format of TCP Segment

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 Format of TCP Segment
Source Port:
It indicates the port number of a source process. It is of
2 bytes.

Destination Port:
It indicates the port number of destination process. It is
also 2 bytes.

Sequence Number:
It specifies the number assigned to the current
message. It is of 4 bytes.
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 Format of TCP Segment
Acknowledgement Number:
It indicates the sequence number of the next byte of
data. It is of 4 bytes.

Header Length:
It indicates number of words in the TCP header. It is a 4
bit field.

Reserved:
This 6 bit field is reserved for future use.

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 Format of TCP Segment
Flags:
This 6 bit field consists of 6 different flags:
UGR (Urgent Pointer)

ACK (Acknowledgement)

PSH (Request for Push)

RST (Reset the Connection)

SYN (Synchronize)

FIN (Final or Terminate the Connection)

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 Format of TCP Segment
Window:
It specifies the size of sender’s receiving window, i.e.,
the buffer space available for incoming data. It is of 2
bytes.
Checksum:
This 16-bit field contains the checksum.
Urgent Pointer:
This 16-bit field is valid only if urgent pointer in flags is
set to 1.

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 Format of TCP Segment
Options:
It contains the optional information in the TCP header. It
is of 32 bytes.

Data:
This field contains the upper layer information. It is of
variable size.

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 User Datagram Protocol
User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is a connectionless,
unreliable transport protocol.
Like TCP, UDP also provides process-to-process
communication.
Unlike TCP, it does not provide flow control and error
control mechanisms.
It is connectionless, therefore, it transfers data
without establishing a connection.

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 User Datagram Protocol
The various features of UDP are:
It provides connectionless transport service.
It is unreliable.
It does not provide flow control and error control.
It is less complex and is simple than TCP, and easy to
implement.
User datagrams (packets) are not numbered.

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 UDP Datagram
A datagram is the unit of data transferred between
two processes.
Each UDP datagram consists of two parts:
Header Part
Data Part.

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 Format of UDP Datagram

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 UDP Datagram
Source Port:
It indicates the port number of source process. It is of
16 bits.

Destination Port:
This 16 bit field specifies the port number of destination
process.

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 UDP Datagram
Length:
It specifies the total length of the user datagram
(header + data). It is of 16 bits.

Checksum:
The contains the checksum, and is optional. It is also of
16 bits.

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