Network topologies

L. Lefvre
INRIA, Lyon, France
Laurent.lefevre@inria.fr

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
Physical Descriptions:
Inner conductor is solid copper metal
Separated by insulating material
Outer conductor is braided shielded (ground)
Covered by sheath material

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 LAN
Wireless LAN (802.11b..) : 11 to 108Mbits
HiperLAN (European standard; allow
communication at up to 20 Mbps in 5 GHz
range of the radio frquency (RF) spectrum.
HiperLAN/2 operate at about 54 Mbps in
the same RF band.
WiMAX

Major Categories of Networks

PAN
SAN / SAN
Local Area Networks (LAN)
Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN)
Wide Area Networks (WAN)

Issues of size and breadth.

Circuit Switching Technologies

Circuit switching is a dedicated communications path
established between two stations or multiple end points
Transmission path is a connected sequence of physical
link between nodes.
On each link, a logical channel is dedicated to the
connection. Data generated by the source station are
transmitted along dedicated path as rapidly as possible.
At each node, incoming data are routed or switched to
the appropriate outgoing channel without excessive
delay. However, if data processing is required, some
delay is experienced.
Example of circuit switching above is the telephone
networks.

Packet Switching Technologies

It is not necessasry (as in circuit switching) to dedicate transmission

capacity along a path rather data are sent out in a sequence of small
chucks, called packets.
Each packet, consisting of several bits is passed through the
network from node to node along some path leading from the source
to the destination
At each node along the path, the entire packet is received, stored
briefly, and then transmitted to the next node.
At destination all individual packets are assembled together to form
the complete text and message from the source. Each packet is
identified as to its place in the overall text for reassembly.
Packet switching networks are commonly used for terminal-tocomputer and computer-to-computer communications.
If packet errors occur, the packet is retransmitted.

Network Interface Card (NIC)

Every computer and most devices (e.g. a
network printer) is connected to network
through an NIC.

Network Characteristics
Topology:
Physical interconnection structure of the network graph:
Node Degree: Number of channels per node.
Network diameter: Longest minimum routing distance between any two nodes in
hops.
Average Distance between all pairs of nodes .
Bisection width: Minimum number of links whose removal disconnects the graph
and cuts it in half.
Symmetry: The property that the network looks the same from every node.
Homogeneity: Whether all the nodes and links are identical or not.

Type of interconnection:
Static or Direct Interconnects: Nodes connected directly using static point-to-point
links.
Dynamic or Indirect Interconnects: Switches are usually used to realize dynamic
links between nodes:
Each node is connected to specific subset of switches.
(e.g
Multistage Interconnection Networks, MINs).
Blocking or non-blocking, permutations realized.
Shared-, broadcast-, or bus-based connections. (e.g. Ethernet-based).

Introduction
Physical and Logical Topologies
Topologies

Bus
Ring
Star
Extended Star
Mesh
Hybrid

Static Point-to-point Connection Network Topologies

Direct point-to-point links are used.

Suitable for predictable communication patterns matching topology.

Fully Connected Network: Every node is connected to all other nodes using N- 1 direct links
N(N-1)/2 Links -> O(N2) complexity
Node Degree: N -1
Diameter = 1
Average Distance = 1
Bisection Width = (N/2)2

Linear Array:
N-1 Links -> O(N) complexity
Node Degree: 1-2
Diameter = N -1
Average Distance = 2/3N
Bisection Width = 1

Route A -> B given by

relative address R = B-A

Ring:
N Links -> O(N) complexity
Node Degree: 2
Diameter = N/2
Average Distance = 1/3N
Bisection Width = 2
Examples: Token-Ring, FDDI, SCI, FiberChannel Arbitrated Loop, KSR1

Ring Topology

Ring Topology (2)

No beginning or end (a ring in fact !!)
All devices of equality of access to media
Single ring data travels in one direction only, guess
what a double ring allows !?
Each device has to wait its turn to transmit
Most common type is Token Ring (IEEE 802.5)
A token contains the data, reaches the destination,
data extracted, acknowledgement of receipt sent back
to transmitting device, removed, empty token passed
on for another device to use

Star Topology

Star Topology (2)

Like the spokes of a wheel (without the
symmetry)
Centre point is a Hub
Segments meet at the Hub
Each device needs its own cable to the Hub
Predominant type of topology
Easy to maintain and expand

Star Topology (3)

Advantages
Easy to add devices as the
network expands
One cable failure does not
bring down the entire network
(resilience)
Hub provides centralised
management
Easy to find device and cable
problems
Can be upgraded to faster
speeds
Lots of support as it is the
most used

Disadvantages
A star network requires more
cable than a ring or bus
network
Failure of the central hub can
bring down the entire
network
Costs are higher (installation
and equipment) than for most
bus networks

Star Network
Switch

Computer

Bisection bandwidth
difficult to scale
Easy to set up
No path redundancy

Clos

4 link pairs

8 hosts/Xbar16

Named for Charles Clos paper

in 53.
Full bisection bandwidth
Scalable to arbitrary size
Based on a xbar
technology(old-16, new-32)
Spreader Network
Redundant and Reconfigurable
# of Input links = # of output
1 link pair/hostlinks
Vampire has 2 myrinet clos
networks with 0.5Tb/s and
1Tb/s

Torus
Ring

2D Torus

Constant incremental cost

as you add nodes
Automatically scales
bisection bandwidth
Redundant paths
Wiring nightmare!
Best for applications that
can exploit the topology
Care must be taken when
assigning nodes to a job
Built-in switch!

Static Network Topologies Examples:

Multidimensional Meshes and Tori
1D mesh

2D mesh

1D torus

2D torus

d-dimensional array or mesh:

N = kd-1 X ...X kO nodes
described by d-vector of coordinates (id-1, ..., iO)
Where

ij kj for 0 j d-1

d-dimensional k-ary mesh: N = kd

k = dN
described by d-vector of radix k coordinate.
Diameter = d(k-1)
d-dimensional k-ary torus (or k-ary d-cube):
Edges wrap around, every node has degree 2d and
connected to nodes that differ by one (mod k) in every
dimension.

3D cube

Multidimensional Meshes and Tori Properties

Routing:
Relative distance: R = (b d-1 - a d-1, ... , b0 - a0 )
Traverse ri = b i - a i hops in each dimension.
Dimension-order routing.

Average Distance:
d x 2k/3 for mesh.
dk/2 for cube.

Degree:
d to 2d for mesh.
2d for cube.

Bisection bandwidth:
k d-1 bi-directional links when k is even.

Physical layout?
2D in O(N) space.

Static Connection Networks Examples:

Hypercubes

Also called binary n-cubes.

Dimension = n = log2N
Number of nodes = N = 2n
Diameter: O(log2N) hops
Good bisection BW: N/2
Complexity:
Number of links: N(log2N)/2
Node degree is n = log2N

5-D
0-D

1-D

2-D

3-D

4-D

Static Connection Networks Examples:

Trees

Diameter and average distance are logarithmic.

k-ary tree, height d = logk N
Address specified d-vector of radix k coordinates describing
path down from root.

Fixed degree k.
Route up to common ancestor and down:
R = B XOR A
Let i be position of most significant 1 in R, route up i+1 levels
Down in direction given by low i+1 bits of B

H-tree space is O(N) with O(N) long wires.

Low Bisection BW = 1

Fat Tree
Aggregate Bandwidth as you
move up the tree
Implicit max scaling for Full
Bisection bandwidth
Limited path redundancy
16x link

4x link

Dynamic Network Building Blocks:

Crossbar-Based Switches
Receiver
Input
Ports

Input
Buffer

Output
Buffer Transmiter

Cross-bar

Control
Routing, Scheduling

Output
Ports

The end
lets see some NSI challenges and
examples

Some references
Documents from E. Lawley
Documents from Shaaban