Network Fundamentals:

Introduction to LAN Concepts

and Protocols
& VLANs
 Outline

• Understanding Networking.

• Understanding Transmission Medium

• Understanding Network Hardware

• Understanding Network Protocols

• Understanding VLANs.
Understanding Networking
 Big Picture
What do you see here for a typical network?
Key Network Terminology Explained (1)

• Networks needs to interconnect at a distance by a form of point

to point or point to multiple point connected media

• A network is a group of computers connected together in such

a way as to allow communication.

• Networks that are interconnected have proven to be low cost,

reliable, and efficient means of communicating at a distance
Key Network Terminology Explained (2)
• Node: anything connected to the network, usually a
computer, but it could be a printer or a scanner
• Segment: any portion of a network that is separated by a
switch, bridge or a router from another part of a network.
• Backbone: the main cabling of a network that all of the
segment connect to. Usually, the backbone is capable of
carrying more information than the individual segments.
• Topology: The way each node is physically connected to
the network
 Common Topologies - Bus
• Bus: each node is daisy-chained (connected one right after the other) along the same
backbone. Information sent from a node travels along the backbone until it reaches its
destination node. Each end of a bus network must be terminated with a resistor.
Common Topologies - Ring
• Ring: Similar to a bus network, rings have
nodes daisy chained, but the end of the
network in a ring topology comes back
around to the first node, creating a
complete circuit. Each node takes a turn
sending and receiving information through
the use of a token. The token along with
any data is sent from the first node to the
second node which extracts the data
addressed to it and adds any data it wishes
to send. Then second node passes the token
and data to the third node, etc. until it
comes back around to the first node again.
Only the node with the token is allowed to
send data . All other nodes must wait for
the token to come to them.
 Common Topologies - Star
• In a star network, each node is connected to a central
device called a hub. The hub takes a signal that
comes from any node and passes it along to all the
other nodes in the network.
•A hub does not perform any type of filtering or
routing of the data.
•A hub is a junction that joins all the different nodes
together.
 Common Topologies - Star
• In a star network, each node is connected to a central
device called a hub. The hub takes a signal that
comes from any node and passes it along to all the
other nodes in the network.
 Common Topologies – Star Bus
• Prob. Most common topology used today. Combines
elements of the star and bus topologies to create a
versatile network environment.
• Nodes in particular areas are connected to hubs (and
create star topology), and hubs are connected
together along the network backbone (like a bus
network).
• Often you have stars nested within stars.
Key Network Terminology Explained (3)
• Simplex: information flows in only one
direction

• Half-duplex: information flows in two

directions, but only in one direction at a
time.

• Full-duplex: information flows in two

directions at the same time
 Basic• Signal Terminologies
Bit: binary digit, either 0 or 1
• Baud (don’t really use anymore; not accurate)
= one electronic state change per second
Kilo K 2^10 • Bit rate – a method for measuring data
Mega M 2^20 transmission speed – bits per second
Giga G 2^30 • Mbps – millions of bits per second (data speed;
Tera T 2^40 measure of bandwidth = total information flow
Peta P 2^50 over a given time) on a telecommunication
Exa E 2^60
medium
Zetta Z 2^70
Yotta Y 2^80 • 8 bits = 1 byte
• Mb – million bits (quantity of data)
• MB – million bytes (quantity of data)
• Gbps – Billion bits per second (data speed)
• Teraflops – trillion operations per second
 Data Transmission
• Successful transmission of data depends on:
– The quality of the signal being transmitted
– Characteristics of the transmission medium
• Data rate – bits per second in data communications
• Bandwidth – bandwidth or signal is constrained by the
transmitter and the nature of the transmission in cycles per
second or hertz
• Noise – Average level of noise over the communication path.
• Error rate – rate at which errors occur where error in 1 or 0 bit
occurs
Understanding Transmission
Medium
 Basic transmission medium concepts
• Medium is the physical path between transmitter and
receiver in a data transmission system
• Guided Medium: waves are guided along a solid
medium path (twisted pair, coaxial cable, and optical
fiber).
• Unguided medium: waves are propagated through
the atmosphere and inner/outerspace (satellite, laser,
and wireless transmissions).
 Medium examples
Media by type

Guided Unguided
Media Media

Coax Twisted Fiber Infrared Radio

Cable Pair Optics Frequency
 Coaxial cable (1)
• Widely installed for use in business and corporation
ethernet and other types of LANs.
• Consists of inter copper insulator covered by
cladding material, and then covered by an outer
jacket
 Inner conductor is solid copper metal
• Physical Descriptions:
 Separated by insulating material

 Outer conductor is braided shielded (ground)

 Covered by sheath material
 Coaxial cable (2)
• Applications:
– TV distribution (cable tv); long distance telephone transmission; short run computer
system links
– Local area networks

• Transmission characteristics:
– Can transmit analog and digital signals
– Usable spectrum for analog signaling is about 400 Mhz
– Amplifier needed for analog signals for less than 1 Km and less distance for higher
frequency
– Repeater needed for digital signals every Km or less distance for higher data rates
– Operation of 100’s Mb/s over 1 Km.
 Twisted Pair Cables
• Physical description:
– Each wire with copper conductor
– Separately insulated wires
– Twisted together to reduce cross talk
– Often bundled into cables of two or four twisted pairs
– If enclosed in a sheath then is shielded twisted pair (STP) otherwise often for home usage
unshielded twisted pair (UTP). Must be shield from voltage lines
• Application:
– Common in building for digital signaling used at speed of 10’s Mb/s (CAT3) and 100Mb/s
(CAT5) over 100s meters.
– Common for telephone interconnection at home and office buildings
– Less expensive medium; limited in distance, bandwidth, and data rate.
 Categories of Twisted
Pairs Cabling System
Category Maximum data Usual application
rate

CAT 1 Less than 1 Mbps analog voice (plain old telephone

service) Integrated Services Digital
Network Basic Rate Interface in ISDN
Doorbell wiring
CAT 2 4 Mbps Mainly used in the IBM Cabling System
for token ring networks

CAT 3 16 Mbps Voice and data on 10BASE-T

Ethernet (certify 16Mhz signal)

CAT 4 20 Mbps Used in 16Mbps Token Ring

Otherwise not used much
CAT 5 100 Mbps 100 Mbps TPDDI
155 Mbps asynchronous transfer
mode (certify 100 Mhz signal)
 Optical Fibers (1)
• Physical Description:
– Glass or plastic core of optical fiber = 2to125 µm
– Cladding is an insulating material
– Jacket is a protective cover
– Laser or light emitting diode provides transmission light source
• Applications:
–Long distance telecommunication
–Greater capacity; 2 Gb/s over 10’s of Km
–Smaller size and lighter weight
–Lower attenuation (reduction in strength of signal)
–Electromagnetic isolation – not effected by external electromagnetic
environment.
Repeaters
– Greater repeater spacing – fewer repeaters, reduces line regeneration cost
 Optical Fibers (2)
• multimode fiber is optical fiber that is designed to
carry multiple light rays or modes concurrently, each
at a slightly different reflection angle within the
optical fiber core. used for relatively short distances
because the modes tend to disperse over longer
lengths (this is called modal dispersion) .
• For longer distances, single mode fiber (sometimes
called monomode) fiber is used. In single mode fiber
a single ray or mode of light act as a carrier
 Wireless Media

Wireless Access Point •Wireless LAN or WLAN

• Wireless local area network that uses radio
waves as its carrier

•Wi-Fi ("Wireless Fidelity“)

•A set of standards for WLANs based on
Laptop with
Wireless
IEEE 802.11
Access Card
•Wi-Max
•Emerging technology that can cover ranges
up to 10 miles or more

•Satellite/Microwave
•High speed media used for longer
distances and remote locations
Network Hardware
 Hubs
• A hub is the place where data converges from one or
more directions and is forwarded out in one or more
directions.
• Seen in local area networks
 LAN Extender
• The LAN Extender is excellent for Ethernet
distance extension over existing telephone
wires. With just one pair twisted pair copper
wire, you can easily connect two Ethernet
networks far away (maximum 6.7 kilometers)
with a maximum 2.3Mbps full duplex transfer
rate. For greater distance up to 12.8km speeds
such as 64Kbps are supported.

Cu Wires LAN
LAN
LAN Extender LAN Extender

Switch Switch
 Bridge
• a bridge is a product that connects a local area
network (LAN) to another local area network that
uses the same protocol (for example, Ethernet or
token ring).
• A bridge examines each message on a LAN,
"passing" those known to be within the same LAN,
and forwarding those known to be on the other
interconnected LAN (or LANs).
 Routers
• A router is a device or a software in a computer that
determines the next network point to which a packet
should be forwarded toward its destination.
• Allow different networks to communicate with each
other
• A router creates and maintain a table of the available
routes and their conditions and uses this information
along with distance and cost algorithms to determine the
best route for a given packet.
• A packet will travel through a number of network points
with routers before arriving at its destination.
 Switches
• Switches occupy the same place in the network as hubs.
Unlike hubs, switches examine each packet and process
it accordingly rather than simply repeating the signal to
all ports. Switches map the Ethernet addresses of the
nodes residing on each network segment and then allow
only the necessary traffic to pass through the switch.
When a packet is received by the switch, the switch
examines the destination and source hardware addresses
and compares them to a table of network segments and
addresses. If the segments are the same, the packet is
dropped ("filtered"); if the segments are different, then
the packet is "forwarded" to the proper segment
 Switch Benefits
• Isolates traffic, relieving congestion

• Separates collision domains, reducing

collisions

• Segments, restarting distance and

repeater rules
 Store-and-Forward vs. Cut-Through

LAN switches come in two basic architectures.

• Cut-through switches only examine the destination

address before forwarding it on to its destination
segment.

• A store-and-forward switch, on the other hand, accepts

and analyzes the entire packet before forwarding it to its
destination. It takes more time to examine the entire
packet, but it allows the switch to catch certain packet
errors and collisions and keep them from propagating
bad packets through the network.
 Spanning Tree Algorithm.
• Spanning Tree Algorithm allows the network manager to
design in redundant links, with switches attached in
loops. This would defeat the self learning aspect of
switches, since traffic from one node would appear to
originate on different ports. Spanning Tree is a protocol
that allows the switches to coordinate with each other so
that traffic is only carried on one of the redundant links
(unless there is a failure, then the backup link is
automatically activated). Network managers with
switches deployed in critical applications may want to
have redundant links.
 Major Categories of Networks
• Local Area Networks (LAN)
– A network of computers that are in the same general
physical location, within a building or a campus.
• Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN)
• Wide Area Networks (WAN)
LOCAL AREA NETWORK
(LANs)
 Local Area Network
• Small interconnected of personal computers or workstations and printers within a
building or small area up to 10 Kms.
• Small group of workers that share common application programs and communication
needs.
• LANs are capable of very high transmission rates (100s Mb/s to G b/s).
• LAN equipment usually owned by organization. Medium may be owned or leased
from telephone company provider or common carrier.
• PC or Workstation interconnected to medium (twisted pair; fiber optics; etc) through
concentrators to servers. LAN is interconnected with other networks via switches and
router/gateways.
• Advanced LANs using circuit switching are available. ATM LANs, fibre channel
baseband, and broadband LANs are being used. Etc.
 Wireless LAN
– A local area network that transmits over the air typically in an unlicensed frequency
such as the 2.4GHz band.

– A wireless LAN does not require lining up devices for line of sight transmission.

– Wireless access points (base stations) are connected to an Ethernet hub or server and
transmit a radio frequency over an area of several hundred to a thousand feet which
can penetrate walls and other non-metal barriers.

– Roaming users can be handed off from one access point to another like a cellular
phone system.

– Laptops use wireless network cards that plug into an existing PCMCIA slot or that are
self contained on PC cards, while stand-alone desktops and servers use plug-in cards
(ISA, PCI, etc.).
 What is ethernet?
• A group of standards for defining a local area network
that includes standards in cabling and the structure of the
data sent over those cables as well as the hardware that
connects those cables.
• Independent of the network architecture
• Flavors of ethernet
• IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Specification
– Great detail specifying cable types, data formats, and
procedures for transferring that data through those cables
• IEEE 802.5 Token Ring Specification
Network Interface Card (NIC)

• Every computer and most devices (e.g.

a network printer) is connected to
network through an NIC. In most
desktop computers, this is an Ethernet
card (10 or 100 Mbps) that is plugged
into a slot on the computer
motherboard.
 How does Ethernet work?
• Using MAC addresses to distinguish between
machines, Ethernet transmits frames of data across
baseband cables using CSMA/CD (IEEE 802.3)
 What is a MAC Address?
• Media Access Control (MAC) Address – are the
physical address of any device, e.g. a NIC in a
computer on the network. The MAC address has two
parts of 3 bytes long. The first 3 bytes specify the
company that made the NIC and the second 3 bytes
are the serial number of the NIC.
 What is a Token Ring?
• All computers are connected in a ring or star
topology and a binary digit or token passing scheme
is used in order to prevent the collision of data
between two computers that want to send messages
at the same time.
 How do Token Rings work?
1. Empty information frames are continuously circulated on the ring.
2. When a computer has a message to send, it inserts a token in an empty
frame (this may consist of simply changing a 0 to a 1 in the token bit part
of the frame) and inserts a message and a destination identifier in the
frame.
3. The frame is then examined by each successive workstation. If the
workstation sees that it is the destination for the message, it copies the
message from the frame and changes the token back to 0.
4. When the frame gets back to the originator, it sees that the token has been
changed to 0 and that the message has been copied and received. It
removes the message from the frame.
5. The frame continues to circulate as an "empty" frame, ready to be taken
by a workstation when it has a message to send.
Understanding Network Protocols
Protocols of Computer Communications
and Networks
• Protocol are used for communication between computers in different computer
networks. Protocol achieves:
– What is communicated between computers?
– How it is communicated?
– When it is communicated?
– What conformance (bit sequence) between computers?
• Key elements of a protocol are:
– SYNTAC: Data format and signal levels
– SEMANTICS: Control information for coordination and error handling
– TIMING: Synchronization, speed matching, and sequencing
• Examples of protocols:
– WAN Protocol: TCP/IP
– LAN Protocol: Media Access Control; Contention; Token Passing
 ISO/OSI Reference Model (2)
File Transfer, Email, Remote Login 

ASCII Text, Sound (syntax layer) 

Establish/manage connection 
End-to-end control & error checking
(ensure complete data transfer): TCP 

Routing and Forwarding Address: IP 

Two party communication: Ethernet 

How to transmit signal; coding
Hardware means of sending and 
receiving data on a carrier