Chapter 8

Switching

Computer Networks

1
 Overview
 Networks are used to interconnect many devices.
 We have checked with Local Area Networks.
 Now, wide area networks
 Since the invention of the telephone, circuit switching
has been the dominant technology for voice
communications.
 Since 1970, packet switching has evolved substantially
for digital data communications. It was designed to
provide a more efficient facility than circuit switching for
bursty data traffic.
 Two types of packet switching:
 Datagram (such as today’s Internet)
 Virtual circuit (such as Frame Relay, ATM)
2
Figure 8.2 Taxonomy of switched networks

3
Switched Communications Networks
 Long distance transmission between stations
(called “end devices”) is typically done over a
network of switching nodes.
 Switching nodes do not concern with content of
data. Their purpose is to provide a switching
facility that will move the data from node to
node until they reach their destination (the end
device).
 A collection of nodes and connections forms a
communications network.
 In a switched communications network, data
entering the network from a station are routed
to the destination by being switched from node
to node. 4
Simple Switching Network

5
Switching Nodes
 Nodes may connect to other nodes,
or to some stations.
 Network is usually partially connected
 However, some redundant connections
are desirable for reliability
 Two different switching technologies
 Circuit switching
 Packet switching

6
Circuit Switching

7
Circuit Switching

8
Circuit Switching
 A network in which a dedicated circuit
is established between sender and
receiver and all data passes over this
circuit.
 Telephone system is a common example.
 The connection is dedicated until one
party or another terminates the
connection.

9
Circuit Switching
 Communication via circuit switching has three
phases:
 Circuit establishment (link by link)
 Routing & resource allocation (FDM or TDM)
 Data transfer
 Circuit disconnect
 Deallocate the dedicated resources
 The switches must know how to find the route
to the destination and how to allocate
bandwidth (channel)

10
Circuit Switching Properties
 Inefficiency
 Channel capacity is dedicated for the whole duration
of a connection
 If no data, capacity is wasted
 Delay
 Long initial delay: circuit establishment takes time
 Low data delay: after the circuit establishment,
information is transmitted at a fixed data rate with no
delay other than the propagation delay. The delay at
each node is negligible.
 Developed for voice traffic (public telephone
network) but can also applied to data traffic.
 For voice connections, the resulting circuit will enjoy
a high percentage of utilization because most of the
time one party or the other is talking.
 But how about data connections? 11
 Public Circuit Switched Network

Subscribers: the devices that attach to the network.

Subscriber loop: the link between the subscriber and the network.
Exchanges: the switching centers in the network.
End office: the switching center that directly supports subscribers.
Trunks: the branches between exchanges. They carry multiple
voice-frequency circuits using either FDM or synchronous TDM. 12
Advantages of Circuit Switching
 Guaranteed bandwidth (Quality of Service)
 Predictable bitrate and delay
 Good for delay-sensitive applications
 Reliable communication
 Rare packet loss
 Packets are delivered in order
 Simple data routing
 Forwarding based on time slot or frequency
(multiplexing)
 No need to inspect a packet header for address

13
 Low per-packet overhead
 Forwarding based on time slot or frequency
 No IP (and TCP/UDP) header on each packet

 Network state
 Network nodes must store per-connection
information
 Unable to avoid per-connection storage and state

14
 Disadvantages of Circuit Switching
 Wasted bandwidth
 Bursty traffic leads to idle connection during silent period
 Blocked connections
 Connection refused when resources are not sufficient
 Unable to offer “okay” service to everybody
 Connection set-up delay
 No communication until the connection is set up
 Unable to avoid extra latency for small data transfers

15
Packet Switching Principles
 Problem of circuit switching
 designed for voice service
 Resources dedicated to a particular call
 For data transmission, much of the time
the connection is idle (say, web browsing)
 Data rate is fixed
 Both ends must operate at the same rate
during the entire period of connection
 Packet switching is designed to address
these problems. 16
Basic Operation
 Data are transmitted in short packets
 Typically at the order of 1000 bytes
 Longer messages are split into series of packets
 Each packet contains a portion of user data plus
some control info
 Control info contains at least
 Routing (addressing) info, so as to be routed to the
intended destination
 Recall the content of an IP header!
 store and forward
 On each switching node, packets are received, stored
briefly (buffered) and passed on to the next node.
17
Use of Packets

18
Advantages of Packet Switching
 Line efficiency
 Single node-to-node link can be dynamically shared by
many packets over time
 Packets are queued up and transmitted as fast as
possible
 Data rate conversion
 Each station connects to the local node at its own speed
 In circuit-switching, a connection could be blocked if
there lacks free resources. On a packet-switching
network, even with heavy traffic, packets are still
accepted, by delivery delay increases.
 Priorities can be used
 On each node, packets with higher priority can be
forwarded first. They will experience less delay than
lower-priority packets. 19
 Advantages of Packet Switching
 No wasted bandwidth (not entirely true)
 Links are not reserved during idle period
 Multiplexing (see next slides)
 Frequency, time, statistical multiplexing
 Service
 More connections of lesser quality
 No blocking of users
 Adaptation
 Can adapt to network congestion and
failures 20
 Disadvantages of Packet Switching
 No guaranteed bandwidth
 Harder to build applications requiring QoS
 Per packet overhead
 Need a header with source/dest. address, etc.
 Complex end-to-end control
 Packets can be lost, corrupted or delivered
out-of-order
 Delay and Congestion
 No congestion control, can lead to arbitrary
delays and packet drops 21
Packet Switching Technique
 A station breaks long message into packets
 Packets are sent out to the network
sequentially, one at a time
 How will the network handle this stream of
packets as it attempts to route them through
the network and deliver them to the intended
destination?
 Two approaches
 Datagram approach
 Virtual circuit approach

22
Datagram
 Each packet is treated independently, with no
reference to packets that have gone before.
 Each node chooses the next node on a packet’s path.
 Packets can take any possible route.
 Packets may arrive at the receiver out of order.
 Packets may go missing.
 It is up to the receiver to re-order packets and
recover from missing packets.
 Example: Internet

23
Datagram

24
Figure 8.7 A datagram network with four switches (routers)

25
Virtual Circuit
 In virtual circuit, a preplanned route is
established before any packets are sent,
then all packets follow the same route.
 Each packet contains a virtual circuit
identifier instead of destination address,
and each node on the pre-established route
knows where to forward such packets.
 The node need not make a routing decision
for each packet.
 Example: X.25, Frame Relay, ATM
26
 Virtual
Circuit

A route between stations is

set up prior to data transfer.
All the data packets then
follow the same route.
But there is no dedicated
resources reserved for the
virtual circuit! Packets need
to be stored-and-forwarded.

27
Figure 8.11 Virtual-circuit identifier

28
Figure 8.12 Switch and tables in a virtual-circuit network

29
Figure 8.13 Source-to-destination data transfer in a virtual-circuit network

30
Figure 8.14 Setup request in a virtual-circuit network

31
Figure 8.15 Setup acknowledgment in a virtual-circuit network

32
Note
In virtual-circuit switching, all packets belonging to the same source
and
destination travel the same path;
but the packets may arrive at the destination with different delays
if resource allocation is on demand.

33
Figure 8.16 Delay in a virtual-circuit network

34
Note

Switching at the data link layer in a

switched WAN is normally implemented by
using virtual-circuit techniques.

35
Virtual Circuits Similar to IP Datagrams
 Data divided in to packets
 Sender divides the data into packets
 Packet has address (e.g., IP address or VC ID)
 Store-and-forward transmission
 Multiple packets may arrive at once
 Need buffer space for temporary storage
 Multiplexing on a link
 No reservations: statistical multiplexing
 Packets are interleaved without a fixed pattern
 Reservations: resources for group of packets
 Guarantees to get a certain number of “slots”

36
 Virtual Circuits Differ from IP Datagrams
 Forwarding look-up
 Virtual circuits: fixed-length connection id
 IP datagrams: destination IP address
 Initiating data transmission
 Virtual circuits: must signal along the path
 IP datagrams: just start sending packets
 Router state
 Virtual circuits: routers know about connections
 IP datagrams: no state, easier failure recovery
 Quality of service
 Virtual circuits: resources and scheduling per VC
37  IP datagrams: difficult to provide QoS
 Virtual Circuits v Datagram
 Virtual circuits
 Network can provide sequencing (packets arrive at the
same order) and error control (retransmission between
two nodes).
 Packets are forwarded more quickly
 Based on the virtual circuit identifier
 No routing decisions to make
 Less reliable
 If a node fails, all virtual circuits that pass through that node
fail.
 Datagram
 No call setup phase
 Good for bursty data, such as Web applications
 More flexible
 If a node fails, packets may find an alternate route 38
 Routing can be used to avoid congested parts of the network
39
 Comparison of
Communication
Switching Techniques

40
Thank you!

41