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Network Taxonomy,
Packet vs. Circuit Switching
Required reading:
Kurose 1.1, 1.2, 1.3

CSE 3214, Winter 2011

Instructor: N. Vlajic

Network Basics
Network

set of devices (i.e. nodes)

nodes connected by communication links
network uses a combination of both hardware and software to send

data from one location to another

Nodes

desktop PC, UNIX-workstation, printer, PDA, cell phone, sensor

or any other device capable of sending and/or receiving data

Communication Links

direct communication pathway between two

or more devices
communication links made of different physical

media transmit data at different rates

Communication Links
Transmission Media

can be divided into two categories:

unguided (wireless) media signal is broadcast

openly, transmission and reception are achieved by
means of an antenna easy to set up, but low
security and prone to interference

guided media characteristics and quality of

transmitted signal are constrained by physical
limits of the medium
typically provides higher data rates than unguided media

from <100 kbps

up to 600 Mbps

1 Mbps

from 45 Mbps
up to 1600 Gbps

WLAN:
Cellular:
Satellite:

up to 11 Mbps
up to 2 Mbps
up to 50 Mbps

Network Topologies
Link Configuration

point-to-point: dedicated connection between 2 devices

entire link capacity is reserved for the 2 devices

multipoint: channel capacity is shared between 3 or

more devices

Network Topology

geometric representation of the relationship of all links

and linking devices to one another

Network Topologies (cont.)

Mesh Topology

every device has a dedicated point-to-point connection

to every other device

fully connected mesh with n nodes has n(n-1)/2 links
advantages:
advantages

1) dedicated links no need for load balancing

2) ensured privacy and security only intended
recipient sees data
3) robustness to link failure many 2-hop routes

disadvantages:
disadvantages 1) complex installation every device must
be connected to every other device
2) expensive hardware each device must
have multiple I/O ports

Mesh
Mesh topology
topology is
is implemented
implemented mostly
mostly in
in backbone/core
backbone/core networks.
networks.

Network Topologies (cont.)

Star Topology

each device has a dedicated point-to-point link only

to a central controller, so-called hub

no direct traffic between devices
advantages:
advantages 1) simpler and less expensive installation than in
mash topology each device needs only one
link and one I/O port
disadvantages:
disadvantages 1) hub = single point of network failure
2) possibly slower performance

Network Topologies (cont.)

Bus Topology

one long cable, so-called backbone,

backbone links all devices

in the network multipoint connection / link

advantages:
advantages 1) simple installation
2) less cabling than in mesh or star topologies
one cable stretches through entire facility
disadvantages:
disadvantages 1) backbone = single point of network failure
2) collisions diminishing capacity
if two or more devices transmit simultaneously
their signals will interfere
collision control:
control MAC control, scheduling or
channelization

Network Topologies (cont.)

Ring Topology

each device has a dedicated point-to-point connection

only with the two devices on either side of it

signal is passed along the ring in one direction, from device

to device, until it reaches its destination

advantages:
advantages 1) fairness in access token-passing provides
each station with a turn to transmit
2) relatively easy to install and reconfigure each
device is linked only to its immediate neighbors
disadvantages:
disadvantages 1) entire network will fail if there is a failure in
any transmission link or in the mechanism
that relays the token

Categories of Networks
Categories of Networks

LAN

(1) Local Area Network (LAN)

(2) Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)
(3) Wide Area Network (WAN)

computer network concentrated in a smaller geographic area

(d < 1 km), such as an office, building, or campus

LAN is owned by the same organization that owns the attached devices!!!
LANs typically employ only one type of transmission medium (wired or
wireless), and provides low-delay, relatively error-free communication
internal data rates of LANs are more uniform and much greater than
those of WANs (100 Mbps LANs are common, 1/10 Gbps LANs are available)
most common LAN topologies: bus, ring, star

Categories of Networks (cont.)

MAN

a number of LANs connected into a larger network so that

resources can be shared

MAN extends over a larger geographic area (5 to 50 km), e.g. entire city
MAN can be wholly owned and operated by a private company, or it

may include point-to-point links provided by a public company (e.g.

local telephone company) to connect its remote sites

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Categories of Networks (cont.)

WAN

computer network that extends over large geographic area

(>100 km), such as a country, continent, or even the whole world

can be thought of as a collection of LANs interconnected via core

network (set of switching stations)

Core Network

Packet Switches
(Routers)

connecting devices whose purpose is to route (i.e

switch) data to their final destination

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Circuit vs. Packet Switching

Taxonomy of Switched Wide Area Networks
WAN
Telecommunication
Systems

intelligent core
dumb nodes
Circuit-Switched
Networks

(e.g. telephone networks)

dumb core
intelligent nodes
Packet-Switched
Networks
connectionless

Datagram Networks
(e.g. the Internet)

connection-oriented connectionless
service (TCP)
service (UDP)

connection-oriented

Virtual Circuit
(e.g. ATM)

Circuit vs. Packet Switching (cont.)

Network Core

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mesh of routers/switches that interconnect end systems

two fundamental approaches to building network core:

(1) circuit switching (example:

example telephone networks)
a sequence of links (communication path) between

two communicating nodes is determined in advance

on each physical link, a channel is dedicated to the

connection
data is sent as a stream of bits through the network

(2) packet switching (example:

example the Internet)
data is sent through network in short blocks packets
network links are dynamically shared by many packets;

each packet uses full link bandwidth

LAN 1

WAN Core Network

LAN 2

Circuit vs. Packet Switching (cont.)

Circuit-Switched
Networks

(e.g. telephone networks)

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Circuit vs. Packet Switching (cont.)

Packet Switching:
Datagram Networks
(e.g. the Internet)

Packet Switching:
Virtual Circuit
(e.g. ATM)

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Circuit Switching
Communication via
Circuit Switching

involves three phases:

(1) circuit establishment
before any data is transmitted, an end-to-end circuit

must be established, i.e. network resources on path/

links between end-devices must be reserved

(2) data transfer

data transmission and signaling may each be digital

or analog

(3) circuit disconnect

after some period of data transfer, the connection

is terminated, by action of one of two stations, and

dedicated resources are released

Vancouver
Toronto

Circuit Switching (cont.)

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Multiplexing in each link can be shared among (up to) n circuits

Circuit-Switched each circuit gets a fraction 1/n of the links bandwidth
multiplexing = set of techniques that allows simultaneous
Networks
transmission of multiple signals across a single data link

frequency division multiplexing (FDM) = each circuit

continuously gets a fraction of the links bandwidth

time division multiplexing (TDM) = each circuit gets all

of the bandwidth periodically during brief intervals of time

FDM

TDM

frequency

time
time

frequency

Circuit Switching (cont.)

Advantages of
Circuit Switching

Disadvantages of
Circuit Switching

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guaranteed Quality of Service data are transmitted

at fixed (guaranteed) rate; delay at nodes is negligible

inefficient use of capacity channel capacity is

dedicated for the duration of a connection, even if
no data is being transferred
(example: silent periods in a phone call)

circuit establishment delay circuit establishment

introduces initial delay

network complexity end-to-end circuit establishment

and end-to-end bandwidth allocation is complicated
and requires complex signaling software to coordinate
operation of switches

Packet Switching
Communication via
Packet Switching

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(1) message segmentation

longer message is broken up into series of packets
packets contain users data + control data
control data, at a minimum, contains information that

network requires to route the packet

(2) data transfer

intermediate nodes perform following operations:

(a) receive entire packet

(b) determine next node and link on route
(c) queue packet to go out on that link
when link is available, packet is transmitted to next

node

Packet Switching (cont.)

Main Principle of
Packet Switching

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statistical multiplexing () on-demand rather than

pre-allocated sharing of resources link capacity is shared
on packet-to-packet basis only among those users who
have packets that need to be transmitted over the link
(1) router buffers packets and arranges them in a queue
(2) as the transmission line becomes available, packets
are transmitted one by one

queue of packets
waiting for output

Bandwidth division into pieces

Dedicated allocation
Resource reservation

A
B

statistically multiplexed packets:

packets are interleaved
based on the statistics of the senders

store-and-forward ( ) switch must receive entire packet

before it can begin to transmit the first bit of the packet onto
the outbound link

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Packet Switching (cont.)

Example [ circuit switching vs. packet switching ]
N=35 users share a 1 Mbps link
each user generates 100kbps when active
each user is active 10% of time

How many users can be supported with circuit

and how many with packet switching?

100 kbps

N users

1 Mbps link
100 kbps

Circuit Switching
With circuit switching, 100kbps must be reserved for each user at all times. Hence, the
output link can support 1Mbps/100kbps = 10 simultaneous users.
users

Packet Switching
10 or fewer simultaneously active users aggregate rate 1 Mbps users

packets flow through output link without delay, as in case of circuit switching
more than 10 simultaneously active users aggregate rate exceeds output capacity

With 35 users, probability of 10 or less simultaneously active users = 0.9996.

Thus, packet switching can support all 35 users with virtually no delay!

Packet Switching (cont.)

Advantages of
Packet Switching

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greater line efficiency node-to-node link dynamically

shared by many packets / connections

data rate conversion two stations of different data

rates can exchange packets, because each connects to
its node at its proper data rate nodes act as buffers

no blocked calls packets are accepted even under

heavy traffic, but delivery delay increases

Disadvantages of
Packet Switching

transmission delay each time a packet passes through

a packet-switching node, it incurs a delay not present in
circuit switching = the time it takes to absorb the packet
into an internal buffer

variable delay each node introduces additional variable

delay due to processing and queueing

overhead to route packets through a packet-switching

network, overhead information including the address of
destination and/or sequence information must be added to
each packet

Packet Switching: Datagram Networks

Datagram Approach to
Packet Switching
(Internet)

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each packet is treated independently with

no reference to packets that have gone
before
each packet (i.e. datagram)
datagram contains the full

address of its destination

each packet switch has a forwarding table that

maps destination addresses to an output link

when packet arrives at a packet switch, the

switch examines packets destination address

and chooses the next node on packets path
based on current traffic, line failure, etc.
packets with the same destination address

do not necessarily follow the same route

packets may arrive out of sequence at
the destination !
if packets arrive out of order, resequencing

must be performed at the destination

Packet Switching: Datagram Networks (cont.)

Example [ packet switching: datagram approach ]

data

destination address

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Packet Switching: Datagram Networks (cont.)

Datagram Approach:
Advantages

(1) call setup avoided

if a station wishes to send only one or a few
packets, datagram delivery is quicker no call
setup delay !

(2) better flexibility in case of congestion

if congestion develops in one part of the network

packets can be routed away from the congestion

(3) network survivability

if a node fails, subsequent packets may find an

alternate route that bypass the failed node

Datagram Approach:
Disadvantages

(1) slower packet switching

(2) out-of-order datagram delivery
(3) best effort quality of service

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Packet Switching: Virtual Circuit Networks

Virtual Circuit Approach to
Packet Switching
(ATM)

relationship between all packets belonging

to a message or session is preserved
a single route, so-called virtual circuit,
circuit is

chosen between sender and receiver at

the beginning of the session
virtual circuit dedicated path packets

are still buffered at each node and queued

for output
all packets of a given session travel one

after another along virtual circuit

each packet contains virtual circuit ID as

well as data
node on a preestablished route has a table

that maps virtual circuit IDs to output links

virtual circuit packet switching can be done

quickly by looking up virtual circuit ID of

incoming packet in small translation table

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Packet Switching: Virtual Circuit Networks (cont.)

Example [ packet switching: virtual-circuit approach ]

data

path identifier

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Packet Switching: Virtual Circuit Networks (cont.)

Virtual Circuit Approach:
Advantages

(1) small look-up tables fast packet switching

number of virtual circuit IDs is reduced to the
maximum number of simultaneous virtual
circuits over an input port << overall number
of network addresses

(2) better quality of service

resources can be allocated during call setup,

i.e. call setup process ensures that a switch

is able to handle the expected volume of traffic

(3) in-order packet delivery

packets follow the same route packets

arrive in-order no additional delay for

packet reordering

Virtual Circuit Approach:

Disadvantages

(1) complex state-maintenance

switches need to maintain information about

flows that pass through them

(2) susceptibility to switch failure

if a switch fails, all affected connections must

be setup again

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Circuit Switching

Virtual Circuit Switching

Datagram Switching

Route data along pre-established paths

all data sent between user1 and user2
flows along the same (logical) circuits

No fixed paths.

advantage: faster switching & in-order delivery

Statistical Multiplexing

FDMA or TDMA

cut data into packets send packets through the network

without any preallocation (reservation) of resources
advantage: more efficient use of links/resources

It appears that Virtual Circuit Switching inherits the advantages of both Circuit and Packet
switching. Why is, then, the Internet built on the Packet Switching technology?!

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Warriors of the Net

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGnJw9rtjas