Computer Network

Basics

An overview of computer networking

which introduces many key concepts
and terminology. Sets the stage for
future topics.
Components of any Computer

Computer Keyboard,
Mouse
Processor Memory Devices
(active) (passive)
Input
Control Disk,
(“brain”) (where
Output Network
programs,
Datapath data live
(“brawn”) when
running) Display,
Printer
 Communication Devices

 Synchronous communication uses a clock

signal separate from the data signal-
communication can only happen during the
‘tick’ of the timing cycle
 Asynchronous communication does not use
a clock signal- rather, it employs a start
and stop bit to begin and end the irregular
transmission of data
 Connecting to Networks (and
Other I/O)

 Bus - shared medium of communication that

can connect to many devices
 Hierarchy of Buses in a PC
 Operating systems

Developer or manufacturer Operating system

Apple Computers Inc. Mac OS 8/9/X
AT&T Bell Laboratories Unix
Be Inc. beOS
Berkeley University BSD, FreeBSD
Carnegie-Mellon University Mach 3.0
Cisco Systems Inc. IOS
HP HP-UX
IBM AIX and OS/2
Linus Thorvald Linux
Microsoft Windows XP, Vista
Novell NetWare
Santa Cruz Operation Inc. (SCO) SCO XENIX, SCO UNIX, SCO MPX
Siemens SINIX
Silicon Graphics IRIX
Sun Microsystems Solaris, SunOS, JavaOS
Operating Systems Developed for
Portable Devices

Developer or manufacturer Operating system

Microsoft Windows CE
Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0
Palm PalmOS
Symbian Symbian OS
RIM (Research In Motion Limited) RIM
 A closer look at network structure:

 network edge:
applications and
hosts
 network core:
 routers
 network of
networks
General Architecture of Computer
Networks
External
nodes
Cloud
(or stations)

Internal nodes
(swithing devices)
 The Network Core

 mesh of interconnected
routers
 the fundamental
question: how is data
transferred through net?
 circuit switching:
dedicated circuit per
call: telephone net
 packet-switching:
data sent thru net in
discrete “chunks”
 Connection of Networks

router or
gateway
networks or subnetworks

node
(host,
station)
 Network Topology

a) bus, b) star, c) ring, d) tree structure

a) b) c) d)
Classification of the networks according
to the connection establishing

 Line switched network

 Packet switched network
 Radiating/data disseminating systems
 Point-to-point connected networks
 Wired media

 Telephone line
 Thin Coax
 Thick Coax
 Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP)
 Shielded Twisted Pair (STP)
 Fibre
 (Data) Reliability

 A network service is (data) reliable

if the sender application can rely on
the error-free and ordered delivery
of the data to the destination
 In the Internet the reliability can
obtained mainly by
acknowledgements and
retransmission
 In such a way the losses in the
underlying layers can be retrieved
Flow-control and Congestion
Prevention
 Flow-control: to protect the
receiver against the overload
 I.e.: the sender (source) sends more
data than the receiver can process
 it is mainly necessary in link and
transport level
 Congestion prevention: to prevent
the intermediate nodes against the
overload
 it is mainly necessary in network level
 Overload and Congestion

 Overload: Too many packets occur in a

subnetwork in the same time, which
prevent each other and in such a way
the throughput decreases
 Congestion: the queues in the routers
are too long, the buffers are full.
 As a consequence some packages are
dropped if the buffers of the routers are
overloaded
 In extreme case: grid-lock, lock-up
 Deadlock

 Deadlock: the most serious situation of the

congestion, the routers wait for each other
 Direct store and forward deadlock: the
buffers of two neighbouring routers are
full with the packets to be sent to the
other router
 Indirect store and forward deadlock: the
deadlock occurred not between two
neighbouring routers but in a subnetwork,
where any of the routers has not free
buffer space for accepting packets
 Review: Networking Definitions
 Network: physical connection that allows two computers to
communicate
 Packet: unit of transfer, bits carried over the network
 Network carries packets from on CPU to another
 Destination gets interrupt when packet arrives
 Protocol: agreement between two parties as to how
information is to be transmitted
 Broadcast Network: Shared Communication Medium
 Delivery: How does a receiver know who packet is for?
 Putheader on front of packet: [ Destination | Packet ]
 Everyone gets packet, discards if not the target
 Arbitration: Act of negotiating use of shared medium
 Point-to-point network: a network in which every physical
wire is connected to only two computers
 Switch: a bridge that transforms a shared-bus
(broadcast) configuration into a point-to-point network
 Router: a device that acts as a junction between two
networks to transfer data packets among them
 The Need for a Protocol Architecture

 Procedures to exchange data between

devices can be complex
 High degree of cooperation required
between communicating systems
 destination addressing, path
 readiness to receive
 file formats, structure of data
 how commands are sent/received and
acknowledged
 etc.
 Layered Protocol Architecture

 Modules arranged in a vertical stack

 Each layer in stack:
 Performs related functions
 Relies on lower layer for more primitive
functions
 Provides services to next higher layer
 Communicates with corresponding peer layer of
neighboring system using a protocol
 Network Layering
 Layering: building complex services from simpler ones
 Each layer provides services needed by higher layers by utilizing services
provided by lower layers
 The physical/link layer is pretty limited
 Packets are of limited size (called the “Maximum Transfer Unit or MTU:
often 200-1500 bytes in size)
 Routing is limited to within a physical link (wire) or perhaps through a
switch
 Our goal in the following is to show how to construct a secure, ordered,
message service routed to anywhere:

Physical Reality: Packets Abstraction: Messages

Limited Size Arbitrary Size
Unordered (sometimes) Ordered
Unreliable Reliable
Machine-to-machine Process-to-process
Only on local area net Routed anywhere
Asynchronous Synchronous
 Key Features of a Protocol

 Set of rules or conventions to exchange

blocks of formatted data
 Syntax: data format
 Semantics: control information
(coordination, error handling)
 Timing: speed matching, sequencing
 Actions: what happens when an event
occurs
Operation of Protocols
Host Host

(n-1). layer (n-1). layer

protocol entity protocol entity

n. layer n. layer
protocol entity protocol entity

(n+1). layer (n+1). layer

protocol entity protocol entity

... ...

Physical connection

(interlayer) protocol layerprotocol

 The OSI Model

 Physical Layer
 (Data) Link Layer
 Network Layer
 Transport Layer
 Session Layer
 Presentation Layer
 Application Layer
 Physical Layer

 Transmission of energy onto the

medium
 Collection of energy from the medium
 This layer is concerned with the physical
transmission of raw bits
 This bits are transmitted through
mechanical, electrical, and procedural
interfaces which include
• interface card standard
• modem standards
• certain portions of the ISDN and LAN MAN
standards
 (Data) Link Layer

 Transmission of frames over one link or network

 Often subdivided into the MAC and LLC
 It receives bits from the physical layer, converting bits
to frames
 frame boundaries
 Using protocols (e.g. HDLC), this layer corrects errors
that might have occurred during transmission across a link
 In addition this layer provides an “error-free”
transmission channel to the next layer known as the
network layer: error control
 ARQ
 duplicates
 Flow control
 Network Layer I
 The previous two layers were concerned with getting
error-free data across a link
 The network layer establishes connections between nodes,
routes data packets through the network, and accounts for
them
 End-to-end transmission of packets (possibly over multiple
links)
 Controls the operation of the subnet
 Routing
 static
 dynamic
 Congestion control
 At this stage, there may be congestion due to many packets waiting
to be routed
 Some packets may be lost during congestion
 Network Layer II
 Accounting
 packets
 bytes
 etc.
 Internetworking
 This layer is also concerned with internetworking
where there is ‘talking’ between technologies, such as
the traditional Internet connected to ATM
 segmentation
 addressing
 sequencing
 accounting

 Broadcast subnets: thin network layer

 Transport Layer I

 This layer presumes the ability to pass

through a network and provides additional
services to end-users, such as and-to-and
packet reliability
 End-to-end delivery of a complete message
(end-to-end communication path, usually
reliable)
 Isolation from “hardware”
 Multiplexing/demultiplexing
 Divide message into packets
 Reassemble (possibly out of order packets)
into the original message of the distant end
 Transport Layer II

 End-to-end flow control

 Acknowledgments
 Types of service
 error-free, point-to-point, in sequence,
flow controlled
 no correctness guarantees
 no sequencing

 Establishing/terminating connections
 naming/addressing
 intra-host addressing (process, ports)
 Session Layer

 This layer enables users to establish sessions across a

network between machines
 In addition, it offers session management services
 Set up and management of end-to-end conversation
 Establish and terminate sessions
 superset of connections
 Assignment of logical ports
 Dialogue control
 Token management
 for critical operations

 Synchronization
 checkpoints/restarts
 Presentation Layer

 This layer is concerned with the syntax and semantics of

messages, code conversions between machines, and other
data conversion services
 Some of these services are data compression and data
encryption
 Interface between lower layers and application
 Formatting
 Syntax & semantics of messages
 Data encoding (e.g.: ASCII to EBCDIC)
 Compression
 Encryption/Decryption
 Authentication
 Application Layer

 This layer provides support for the user's network

applications
 Some application layer services have been standardized,
e.g.:
 File Transfer and Management (FTAM)
 Message Handling Services for electronic mail (X.400)
 Directory Services (X.500)
 Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
 Program you’re running,applications
 file transfer, access & management
 e-mail
 virtual terminals
 WWW
The OSI Protocol Stack
 Endsystem Intermediate Intermediate Endsystem
Application Application
layer entity layer entity

Presentation Presentation
layer entity layer entity

Operation
Session layer Session layer
entity entity

of the Transport
layer entity
Transport
layer entity

model Network
layer entity
Network
layer entity
Network
layer entity
Network
layer entity

Datalink Datalink Datalink Datalink

layer entity layer entity layer entity layer entity

Physical layer Physical layer Physical layer Physical layer

entity entity entity entity

Physical medium

Virtual Real data

transmission transmission
Names of the Nodes, Connections and
Data Units

Layer name Node Connection Data unit

Application layer application network service e.g. file (ADU)
Presentation layer host session data structure (PPDU)
Session layer host transport connection message (SPDU)
Transport layer host network path message (TPDU)
Network layer host, router line (data)packet (NPDU)
(Data)link layer station (physical) channel (data)frame (LLC PDU)
Physical layer switch physical transmission bit
medium
Communication among the layers

 Connection oriented network service

(virtual circuits, eg. ATM)
• Reliable transport service
• Unreliable transport service
 Connectionless
network service
(datagram service, eg. IP)
• Reliable transport service (eg. TCP)
• Unreliable transport service (eg. UDP)
 Network Tools

 Repeater: connects network segments

logically to one network
 Hub: multiport repeater
 Bridge: datalink level connection of two
networks
 Switch: multiport bridge
 Router: connects networks that are
compatible in transport level
 subnetworks are connected to the interfaces of
the repeater
 Gateway (proxy server): router between
two individual network. The “Way Out”
 Physical Layer Devices

 Repeater

 Hub
 “dumb”
 level-1 hub
 multi-port repeater
 Data Link Layer Devices

 Bridge
 Cascaded vs. Backbone
 Single
 Multiple

 Switch (switched hub)

 Routers

 Provide link between networks

 Accommodate network differences:
 Addressing schemes
 Maximum packet sizes
 Hardware and software interfaces
 Network reliability

 Congestion/Traffic Management
 Devices of the Network Connection

Application layer Application layer

Gateway
Presentation layer Presentation layer
or
Session layer Session layer
Proxy server
Transport layer Transport layer
Network layer Router or Gateway Network layer
Datalink layer Bridge or Switch Datalink layer
Physical layer Repeater or Hub Physical layer
Architectural Implementation of the
LANs

 Ethernet (IEEE 802.3)

 FDDI
 GigabitEthernet
 Token Bus (IEEE 802.4)
 Token Ring (IEEE 802.5)
Characteristics of High-Speed LANs

Fast Ethernet Gigabit Ethernet Fibre Channel Wireless LAN

100 Mbps – 3.2

Data Rate 100 Mbps 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps 1 Mbps – 2 Gbps
Gbps

UTP,STP, Optical UTP, shielded Optical fiber, 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz

Transmission Mode
Fiber cable, optical fiber coaxial cable, STP Microwave

Access Method CSMA/CD CSMA/CD Switched CSMA/CA Polling

Supporting Fibre Channel

IEEE 802.3 IEEE 802.3 IEEE 802.11
Standard Association
 Wide Area Network Connections

 Solutions for connecting LANs to the

Internet
 Ethernet (ring or star topology)
 Managed Leased Line Network (MLLN)
 ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode)
 Switched line
 ISDN line
 Soft and Hard States

 State: the data collection, which are necessary for

keeping the connection between two protocol entities
 Hard state
 If the connection is established once, it is never timed out, even
if it is not in usage
 To cancel the connection one of the participants of the connection
must explicitly close it
 The history of the state is stored
 Soft state
 To keep the connection the participants must send occasionally
keep-alive messages, since without keep-alive message the state
information is timed out after a certain period
 The state is called as “soft” since in the ordinary operation the
state can change easily
 The history of the state is not stored
 Packet switching versus circuit switching

Is packet switching best in every case?

 Great for bursty data

 resource sharing
 no call setup (less start-up delay)

 However…
 Packets can experience delays, so not for “real-time”
applications
 excessive congestion leads to packet delay and loss
• protocols (like TCP) are needed for reliable data
transfer, and congestion control
 Performance Considerations
 Before continue, need some performance metrics
 Overhead: CPU time to put packet on wire
 Throughput: Maximum number of bytes per second
• Depends on “wire speed”, but also limited by slowest router (routing
delay) or by congestion at routers
 Latency: time until first bit of packet arrives at receiver
• Raw transfer time + overhead at each routing hop

Router Router

LW1 LR1 LW2 LR2 Lw3

 Contributions to Latency
 Wire latency: depends on speed of light on wire
• about 1–1.5 ns/foot
 Router latency: depends on internals of router
• Could be < 1 ms (for a good router)
 Delay in packet-switched networks
packets experience delay  Nodal processing:
 check bit errors
on end-to-end path
 determine output link
 four sources of delay
 Queueing:
at each hop
 time waiting at output
link for transmission
 depends on congestion
level of router
transmission
A propagation

B
nodal
processing queueing
 Delay in packet-switched networks
Transmission delay: Propagation delay:
 R=link bandwidth (bps)  d = length of physical link
 L=packet length (bits)  s = propagation speed in
 time to send bits into medium (~2x108 m/sec)
link = L/R  propagation delay = d/s

transmission
A propagation

B
nodal
processing queueing
 Queueing delay (revisited)

 R=link bandwidth (bps)

 L=packet length (bits)
 a=average packet
arrival rate

traffic intensity = La/R

 La/R ~ 0: average queueing delay small

 La/R -> 1: delays become large
 La/R > 1: more “work” arriving than can be
serviced, average delay infinite!
Internet protocol stack

 Application: supporting network

applications
 ftp, smtp, http
 Transport: host-host data transfer
 tcp, udp
 Network: routing of datagrams from
source to destination
 ip, routing protocols
 Network access: data transfer between
neighboring network elements
 ppp, ethernet
 Physical: bits “on the wire”
 Layering: logical communication
data
E.g.: transport application
transport
transport
 take data from app
network
 add addressing, link
reliability check physical
info to form ack network
“datagram” application link
 send datagram to transport data physical
network
peer
link
 wait for peer to data
physical
ack receipt application application
transport transport
transport
 analogy: post network network
office link link
physical physical
Layering: physical communication
data
application
transport
network
link
physical
network
application link
transport physical
network
link
physical data
application application
transport transport
network network
link link
physical physical
 Protocol layering and data

Each layer takes data from above

 adds header information to create new data unit
 passes new data unit to layer below

source destination
M application application M message
Ht M transport transport Ht M segment
Hn Ht M network network Hn Ht M datagram
Hl Hn Ht M link link Hl Hn Ht M frame
physical physical
 IP over ATM
application
TCP/UDP
 ATM Adaptation
IP
Layer (AAL):
AAL5
interface to upper
ATM
layers
physical
 end-system
 segmentation/rea
application
ssembly ATM
TCP/UDP
 ATM Layer: cell IP
physical
switching AAL5
 Physical application application
ATM
TCP/UDP TCP/UDP
physical
IP IP
AAL5 AAL5
ATM ATM
physical physical
The Internet Protocol Stack

Application
Application
Presentation

Sockets Session

TCP UDP Transport

IP Network

Data Link
Network Access
Physical
 Network Protocols
 Protocol: Agreement between two parties as to how
information is to be transmitted
 Example: system calls are the protocol between the operating
system and application
 Networking examples: many levels
• Physical level: mechanical and electrical network (e.g. how are 0 and 1
represented)
• Link level: packet formats/error control (for instance, the CSMA/CD
protocol)
• Network level: network routing, addressing
• Transport Level: reliable message delivery
 Protocols on today’s Internet:
WWW e-mail
NFS ssh
RPC
Transport UDP TCP
Network IP
Physical/Link Ethernet ATM Packet radio
 Building a messaging service
 Process to process communication
 Basic routing gets packets from machinemachine
 What we really want is routing from processprocess
• Example: ssh, email, ftp, web browsing
 Several IP protocols include notion of a “port”, which is
a 16-bit identifiers used in addition to IP addresses
• A communication channel (connection) defined by 5 items:
[source address, source port, dest address, dest port, protocol]

 UDP: The User Datagram Protocol

 UDP layered on top of basic IP (IP Protocol 17)
• Unreliable, unordered, user-to-user communication
IP Header
(20 bytes)
16-bit source port 16-bit destination port
16-bit UDP length 16-bit UDP checksum

UDP Data
 Building a messaging service (con’t)
 UDP: The Unreliable Datagram Protocol
 Datagram: an unreliable, unordered, packet sent from
source user  dest user (Call it UDP/IP)
 Important aspect: low overhead!
• Often used for high-bandwidth video streams
• Many uses of UDP considered “anti-social” – none of the “well-
behaved” aspects of (say) TCP/IP
 But we need ordered messages
 Create ordered messages on top of unordered ones
• IP can reorder packets! P0,P1 might arrive as P1,P0
 How to fix this? Assign sequence numbers to packets
• 0,1,2,3,4…..
• If packets arrive out of order, reorder before delivering to
user application
• For instance, hold onto #3 until #2 arrives, etc.
 Sequence numbers are specific to particular connection
 TCP/IP packet, Ethernet frame
 Application sends message
Ethernet Hdr
 TCP breaks into 64KB IP Header
segments, adds 20B header TCP Header
 IP adds 20B header, sends EHIP Data
to network TCP data
 If Ethernet, broken into Message
1500B frames with headers, Ethernet Hdr
trailers (24B)
 All Headers, trailers have
length field, destination, ...