GIP Renater

Architecture of the Internet

Jacques Prvost GIP Renater Prevost@Renater.fr

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What is the Internet made of ?

What is the Internet made of ?

a few reminders : ISPs, GIX, Operators, QoS

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The Internet, a huge number of networks

The Internet : u Something like a world-wide service, not a network! u Based on :
S IP protocol (today its version 4, soon its version 6) S A huge number of networks : ISPs : Internet Service Providers :
From very local ones : campus networks, MANs To very large ones : nation-wide, world-wide

S Everybody can exchange data with everybody else :

There are a number of Global Exchange Points : GIX, to which the main ISPs connect. Smaller ISPs reach them through these main ISPs.

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The Internet, a huge number of interconnected networks

ISP ISP GIX ISP ISP ISP ISP ATHENS Novembre 2002 ISP GIX GIX ISP ISP ISP ISP ISP ISP ISP ISP ISP ISP GIX ISP ISP ISP ISP ISP

An ISP network : routers and links :

Other ISPs, users

IP router

Link

Network Control

NOC

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An ISP network : the NOC :

NOC : Network Operation Center u Administration and day-to-day operation of the network, monitoring etc
S Example : receive error information / complaints from other ISPs and users, then act on routers and/or telecom operators (if link down) to set it right again

Network

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Infrastructure and the Internet

ISP ISP ISP ISP ISP ISP

ISP

IP services

Internet service providers They use the services provided by : Telecom operators They use the services provided by :

Links

Infrastructure (cables)
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Infrastructure operators (undersea fiber optic cables, railways )

A few reminders about infrastructure

The Internet can use any type of infrastructure. Typically, for medium or long distance links : u Optical fiber : up to hundreds of Gbit/s
S Terrestrial or undersea

u Copper cables : hundreds of Mbit/s u Satellite :up to hundreds of Mbit/s

S usefull where terrestrial links are scarce S Costly !

Short distance (campus, town) : u Fiber u Radio u ADSL (the so-called high speed Internet : hundreds of kbit/s) u TV cable networks u Power lines : ?
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Who decides the architecture of the Internet :

The ISPs and only the iSPs . Their decisions (i.e., the architecture of the Internet) is mainly based on : u Traffic flows and corresponding revenues, u Availability and cost of infrastructures that telecom operators provide.

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Who decides the technology of the Internet :

Advanced user communities u Universities, research centres
S Mainly in US, Canada, large European countries

Advanced routing hardware manufacturers

S Mainly in US and Canada, + recently a few start-ups in Europe

Large ISPs providing advanced services

S Have to decide if what universities and manufacturers propose is really good for operational and commercial services. Not always so S THEY decide, because in the end it is THEIR money

IETF u Internet Engineering Task Force

S Internet standards (RFCs)
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Basic Internet services

Basic services : Adressing Naming Routing

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Addressing, naming and routing

Addressing : u Each object (router , station) has a unique IP address :
S IPv4 : 123.210.012.111
As the Internet explodes , not enough IPv4 addresses available

S IPv6 : much larger address space

u Addresses are attributed by ICANN

S In Europe, delegated by ICANN to RIPE S ISPs obtain from RIPE blocks of addresses S They attribute these addresses to their customers
But addresses still belong to the ISP

S Each customer attributes individual addresse(s) to its endusers

If not enough addresses available (IPv4) use address translation : complicated
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Addressing, naming and routing

Routing : u How to route datagrams from the sender to the destinee u Based on IP addresses + logical topology of the ISPs networks + policy rules u Routed from router to router according to routing information as known by each router u Protocols for passing routing information between routers :
S Inside Autonomous Systems (AS) (an isp network, or part of a large ISP network) : S Between AS : BGP etc
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Addressing, naming and routing

Naming : u Each object in the Internet has (or can have) a unique name :
S Example : www.Paris.ENSAM.fr
Fr : top-level domain name ENSAM : domain name Paris : sub-domain name : the Paris center of ENSAM www : the machine inside Paris.ENSAM.fr

u Correspondance domain name IP address :

S Done by DNS : Domain Name Servers.

u Attribution of domain names :

S World-wide : ICANN S Within Top-level domain FR : by AFNIC (non-profit institution) S Within ENSAM and its sub-domains : by ENSAM S A domain name belongs to the user organism, not to its ISP
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Advanced services : a few examples :

Advanced services : Quality Of Service Multicast IPv6

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Advanced services : QoS

QoS : Quality Of Service What happens when a network component is overloaded ? u What happens depends on which scheme of Quality of Service the ISP applies :

Overloaded link

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Advanced services : QoS

QoS : u Best Effort : all traffic has the same priority. This is the default strategy (i.e. : no QoS service)
S Packets are dropped, jitter appears (variable wait time in the router) :

Queing
Overloaded link

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Packets dropped

Advanced services : QoS

QoS : u Problems with Best Effort : not acceptable for real-time : audio, video
S Non-real time applications :
TCP (Transport Connection Protocol) asks for re-sending lost packets till all are received correctly TCP is asynchronous, so jitter does not matter TCP always gets the data without error, but may take a lot of time to do it

S Real-time applications :
No time available for re-sending (hence no TCP) Too much jitter packet arrives too late and the application cannot use it :packet dropped at the receiving application level Consequence : overloaded network --> visible and audible bad quality on audio and video
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Advanced services : QoS

Effective QoS : u Strategy 1 : infinite (or almost) bandwidth
S Ensure that packets are almost never dropped
Real-time applications can usually cope with <= 1 % packets dropped

S Ensure that there is almost no jitter (no queues in routers)

u How :
S Non-blocking links (enough bandwidth) and routers (enough capacity)

u Where :
S Core networks of large IP networks S Example : Internet 2

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Advanced services : QoS

Effective QoS : u Strategy 2 : different links for different traffics :
S Traffic which needs quality is usually a small part of overall traffic. S Dedicate separate links to it, with enough bandwidth :

u Where :
S Core networks of large or medium-size IP networks
Quality traffic no overload Ordinary traffic, accepts overload

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Advanced services : QoS

Effective QoS : u Strategy 3 : differentiated classes of service (DiffServ):
S Traffic which needs quality is usually a small part of overall traffic. S It gets priority in routers : no drop; less jitter

u Where :
S Everywhere in IP networks

Queing Ordinary traffic

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Priority traffic
Overloaded link

Packets dropped

Advanced services : QoS

Effective QoS : difficulties : u To be effective, QoS must be implemented coherently from end to end
S Though end-to-end usually goes through several (5, 10, or more) different IP networks S How to get them to agree to a given scheme ?

u Then who pays for it, to whom, and how ? Today, QoS is still at the experimental or pilot level. Not yet operational (at least on large scale).

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Advanced services :multicast

Unicast : u The usual, simple way for routing a datagram :
S One sender, one receiver

Multicast : u One sender, several or many receivers

S The network routers duplicate the datagrams when needed

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Advanced services :multicast

Sender

IP router

Unicast
Link

Receiver
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Advanced services :multicast

Sender Receiver

IP router

Multicast
Link Receiver Receiver
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Receiver

Advanced services :multicast

A multicast session is somewhat like a TV channel :
S One sender, a number (not restricted) of receivers S A receiver can join or leave the session at any time, the networks reconfigures the multicast routing automatically and immediately. S A session is identified by a session identifier :
Looks, feels and tastes like an IP address But is not an address, but a logical TV channel number

S The network automatically sets the correspondance between the session identifier and the relevant IP addresses on sender and receivers.

Main usage : videoconferencing, interactive remote teaching.

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Advanced services : IPv6

The next generation of the Internet Already there on a pilot basis u Refer to specific presentation within this cursus.

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Fin de la prsentation

Questions

Fin

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