Unit-5

Connecting devices and Model

Network Connecting devices(Switch, Router, Repeater, Bridges, Gateway,

Hub)

Switch
A switched network typically contains a series of inter linked node known as switches.
Two types of switches are available.
1. Circuit switching
2. Packet switching.
1. Circuit switching
 Direct physical connection can be created between two nodes or devices like
phone or computers.
 For example in figure instead of peer to peer connection among three computer
on the left (A, B, C) to the four computers on the right (D, E, F & G) requiring
12 links, we can use four switches to reduce the number and the total length of
the links.
 In figure, computer A is connected through switches I, II and III to computer D.
By moving the levers of the switches, any computer on the left can be
connected to any computer on the right.

2. Packet switching
 In this, each packet is treated independently from all other packet in this
technology are referred as data-grams.
 The delivery of four packets from device A to device X using data-gram shown
in above figure.
 Multiple channels may be used in the link joining each pair of devices.
2. Repeater

Repeaters are network devices operating at physical layer of the OSI model that
amplify or regenerate an incoming signal before retransmitting it. They are
incorporated in networks to expand its coverage area. They are also known as
signal boosters.

Advantages of Repeaters
 Repeaters are simple to install and can easily extend the length or the coverage area of
networks.
 They are cost effective.
  Repeaters don’t require any processing overhead. The only time they need to be
investigated is in case of degradation of performance.
 They can connect signals using different types of cables.

Disadvantages of Repeaters
 Repeaters cannot connect dissimilar networks.
 They cannot differentiate between actual signal and noise.
 They cannot reduce network traffic or congestion.
 Most networks have limitations upon the number of repeaters that can be deployed.

3. Hub

A hub is a common connection point, also known as a network hub, which is used for
connection of devices in a network. It works as a central connection for all the devices
that are connected through a hub. The hub has numerous ports. If a packet reaches at
one port, it is able to see by all the segments of the network due to a packet is copied
to the other ports. A network hub has no routing tables or intelligence (unlike a
network switch or router), which is used to send information and broadcast all network
data across each and every connection.

Although most of the hubs can recognize network troubles or errors like collisions,
broadcasting all information to the several ports can be a security risk and cause
bottlenecks. The network hubs were popular in the past time as they were cheaper as
compared to a switch or router. Nowadays, switches are much cheaper than a hub and
provide a better solution for any network. Furthermore, a hub is no IP address, as it is
a dumb device.

Types of Hub
There are three types of the hub that are given below:

1. Passive Hub
 2. Active Hub
3. Intelligent Hub

Passive Hub: The passive hubs are the connection point for wires that helps to make
the physical network. It is capable of determining the bugs and faulty hardware. Simply,
it accepts the packet over a port and circulates it to all ports. It includes connectors
(10base-2 port and RJ-45) that can be applied as a standard in your network. This
connector is connected to all local area network (LAN) devices. Additionally, the
advanced passive hubs have AUI ports, which are connected as the transceiver
according to the network design.

Active Hub: As compared to a passive hub, it includes some additional features. It is

able to monitor the data sent to the connected devices. It plays an important role
between the connected devices with the help of store technology, where it checks the
data to be sent and decides which packet to send first.

It has the ability to fix the damaged packets when packets are sending, and also able
to hold the direction of the rest of the packets and distribute them. If a port receives a
weak signal, but still it is readable, then the active hub reconstructs the weak signal
into a stronger signal before its sending to other ports. It can boost the signal if any
connecting device is not working in the network. Therefore, it helps to make the
continuity of services in LAN.

Intelligent Hub: It is a little smarter than passive and active hubs. These hubs have
some kinds of management software that help to analyze the problem in the network
and resolve them. It is beneficial to expend the business in networking; the
management can assign users that help to work more quickly and share a common
pool efficiently by using intelligent hubs. However, it offers better performance for the
local area network. Furthermore, with any physical device, if any problem is detected,
it is able to detect this problem easily.

4. Bridges:

A bridge is a device that allows you to divide a large network into two or more small
parts and create more efficient networks. A bridge operates at both the physical and
the data link layer of OSI model. As a physical layer device, it regenerates the signal
it receives. As a data link layer device, the bridge can check the physical (MAC)
addresses contained in the frame.

Working:
A bridge manages the information traffic on both sides of the network. Like hub, the
bridge also broadcast the message but not to all computers. It checks the MAC
address of destination node specified in the frame. Then it broadcast that frame to
only that segment which contains destination node. Thus, it filters the data and
provides traffic control management. A bridge keeps record of addresses and ports
into the table. This table is used to map addresses to ports.

To understand the working of bridge, let's take an example. Two LANs are connected
by a bridge. A frame coming from the node under segment 1 arrives at port 1; the
bridge checks its table to find the destination port. If it finds a destination node is also
under segment 1 then it drops the packet and do not broadcast it on other side. But if
it finds a destination node under segment 2 then it forward the frame to segment 2.

There are three types of bridges:

Simple bridge:
It is a simple bridge with two ports that can connect two LAN segments.

Multiport bridge:
It is a bridge with multiple ports, so here you can connect multiple LAN segments
rather than just two.

Transparent Bridges:
It is an intelligent bridge. A transparent bridge is a bridge in which forwarding tables
are dynamic. To make a table dynamic, the bridge inspects both the destination and
the source addresses. The destination address is used for the forwarding decision
(table lookup); the source address is used for adding entries to the table and for
updating purposes.

5. Routers:

 A router is a network layer device that routes packets based on their logical (IP)
addresses. It is used for connecting different networks. Usually it connects LANs and
WANs in the Internet.

Working:
Router is a device which connects two or more networks and route the data between
networks. It has a routing table that is used for making decisions about the route. The
routing tables are normally dynamic and are updated using routing protocols. To route
the data, it checks IP address of incoming packets.
Router provides two types of routing: Adaptive and non-adaptive

Adaptive
 For each routing it uses they may select new path. It checks for best path with
every delivery of data. If a condition of path has been changed, then it selects new
path for next delivery.

Non-Adaptive
 Once a path is decided, it use same path for each data delivery. Generally,
router has two types: Static and Dynamic

Static
 All data entry for routing is done manually by network administrator. It is secure
and it use non-adaptive routing.

Dynamic
 Routing table is created and maintained automatically. No network
administrator required

6. Gateway
Gateway means a door or an entryway. A gateway is normally a computer that
connects two networks having different protocols. It is a protocol converter. Gateway
operates in all five layers of the Internet or seven layers of OSI model.

Working:
 A gateway takes an application message, reads it, and interprets it. This means
that it can be used as a connecting device between two internetworks that use different
models. For example, a network designed to use the OSI model can be connected to
another network using the Internet model. The gateway connecting the two systems
can take a frame as it arrives from the first system, move it up to the OSI application
layer, and remove the message.
 Gateways can provide security. It is also used to filter unwanted application-
layer messages.

OSI Model

 OSI (Open System Interconnection):- An OSI model permits any two different
systems to connect of their primary architecture.
 A layered framework that is used for design of network system that allows for
communication across all type of computer systems is known as “OSI Model”.
 The OSI model is consists of seven ordered layers:

Layer Order
Physical 1
Data link 2
Network 3
Transport 4
Session 5
Presentation 6
Application 7

 When a message is sent from device to device is shown in figure.

 Machine A sends a stream of bits to machine B. At the higher layer
communication must move down through the layer inserts its own information
to the message it receives from the layer just above it and passes the whole
package to the layer just below it.
 Thus information is added in the form of headers or trailers.
 Headers are inserted to the data at layers 6,5,4,3 and 2. Trailer is inserted only
at layer 2.
 Mostly, the physical aspects of moving data from one device to another is
supported by network support layers they are the Layer 1 (physical), 2 (data
link) and 3 (network).
 Layer 5, 6 and 7-session, presentation and application are user support.
Layer 4 the transport layer is use to end to end deliver of data.
 Function of the layers

1. Physical Layer.
The movements of individual bits from one node (hop) to the next node (hop)
is responsibility of the physical layer.

 Physical characteristics of interface & media:-

The features of interface between the devices and transmission medium is
defined by the physical layer
 Representation of bits:-
The physical layer data is present in form of a stream of bits. That Bits must
be encoded into either electrical signal or optical signal.
 Data rate :-
The physical layer is also responsible to define “The transmission rate”. It is
the number of bits sent per second.
 Line configuration :-
 In point-to-point configuration two devices are connected with each other by
single Link. In Multipoint configuration single link is shared by several
devices.
 Topology :-
The physical topology describes how the network is actually laid out.
The topologies used to connect devices can be from one of below listed.
 A ring topology
 A star topology
 A bus topology
 Transmission mode :-
The direction of transmission among two devices can be from one of below
listed.
 Simplex,
 Half-duplex
 Full-duplex.

2. Data link Layer

The movements of frames from one node (hop) to the next node (hop) is
responsibility of the data link layer.

Figure 2.7.3 Data link layer

 Framing:-
The data received from the network layer is divided into small data unit
known as frames by the data link layer.
Physical address :-
To uniquely identify physical address of the sender and receiver of the
frame, the data link layer inserts header to the frame
 Flow control :-
The data link layer is also manage the flow of the data. For example if the
rate produce by the sender is greater than the rate at which the data are
absorbed by the receiver.
 Error control :-
The data link layer is responsible to insert mechanism to identify and
retransmit lost or damaged frames. A trailer added to the frame for effective
error control.
 Access control :-
At any given point of time it is responsibility of data link layer protocols to
identify which device has control over the link in case two or more devices
connected to identical link.
3. Network layer

The delivery of individual packets from the source host to the destination host
is responsibility of the network layer.

 Logical address:-
To identify source and destination another address system is required while
data travels through the network boundary,
The network layer inserts a header to the data coming from the upper layer
and inserts logical address of sender and receiver.
 Routing :-
While small independent networks linked together for forming a large
network,
 It is responsibility of connecting devices i.e. route the data to their respective
final destination.

4. Transport layer

The delivery of a message from one process to another is responsibility of the

transport layer.

Figure 2.7.7 Transport layer

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 Service - point addressing:-
Source-to destination delivery should not considered as only from one
computer to another computer but it should be a particular process on the
sender computer to a particular process on the receiver computer.
 Segmentation and reassembly :-
By using segmentation a message is divided into small transmittable
segments, every segment contains a sequence number. These numbers
helps a transport layer to reassemble the message appropriately at receiver
side
 Connection control :-
Two types of transport layer may be used either connection-oriented or
connectionless. Each segment treated as an individual packet in
connectionless transport layer. While in a connection-oriented transport
layer of source makes an active connection with the transport layer at the
destination which is terminated once all data are transferred.
  Flow control:-
The transport layer is also responsible for flow control just like data link
layer.
 Error control:-
It is a responsibility of the transport layer also for end to end delivery of
packet from layer to layer without error just like data link layer.

Figure 2.7.8 Service point addressing

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5. Session layer
Dialog control and synchronization is two responsibility of the session layer.

Figure 2.7.9 session layer

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 Dialog control :-
The communication among two processes using half-duplex or full-duplex
allowed by session layer
 Synchronization :-
The session layer permits a process to add checkpoint into a data. For
example, if a 200 page file is sent by the system, it is logical to insert
checkpoint after every 100 pages to make sure that each 100 page unit is
 received and acknowledged. In this case, if a crash happen during the
transmission of page 523, retransmission begins at page 501, page 1 t 500
need not be retransmitted.
6. Presentation layer
The responsibility of presentation layer is listed below.
 Translation
 Compression
 Encryption

Figure 2.7.10 Presentation layer

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 Translation :-
A pair of systems are exchange data in the form of number, character string
and so on. Different computers uses different encoding system the
presentation layer is responsible for that. Presentation layer change the
data/information from sender`s specific format to general format and at
receiver machine from general format to receiver specific format.
 Encryption :-
In a simple words the encryption means that sender converts the original
message to another from and sends it over network. Decryption reverses
the process to converts the message back to its original form.
 Compression:-
The number of bits to be transmitted can be drastically reduced using data
compression.
7. Application layer
To provide service to the user is responsibility of application layer.
 Figure 2.7.11 Application layer

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 Network virtual terminal :-
A software of a physical terminal that allows a user to log on to a remote
host is generally known as “network virtual terminal”.
 File transfer, access & management :-
This application allows a user to access file in remote computer, to retrieve
file from a remote computer.
 Mail service :-
Email forwarding and storage is achieved using “mail service”.

2.8 TCP/IP Model

 This model was developed before the OSI model.
 TCP/IP model consist of five layers that are as listed below.
1. Physical
2. Data link
3. Network
4. Transport
5. Application
 The application layer of TCP/IP can be equated with the combination of
session, presentation and application layer of OSI model.
 At transport layer TCP/IP define two protocols TCP and UDP.
 IP is the main protocol at the network layer, there are various other protocols
available that supports for data communication.
 At physical and data link layers, TCP/IP does not define any specific
protocols.
 The data unit created by the application layer is called message.
 A data unit created by TCP and UDP is known as a datagram at network
layer.
 The IP will create a data unit called a datagram at network layer.
 TCP/IP protocols is responsible for the movement of the datagram across
the internet.
 In the data link layer the datagram must be encapsulated in a frame and
finally transmitted as signals to the transmission media.