DEPARTMENT OF CSE, SRM UNIVERSITY

CS1128 High Speed

Networks
UNIT 1 NOTES

A. JOHN BLESSWIN
FEB 2016
CONTENTS

UNIT I HIGH SPEED NETWORKS

Frame Relay Networks - Asynchronous transfer mode - ATM Protocol Architecture,
ATM logical Connection, ATM Cell - ATM Service Categories - AAL, High Speed
LANs: Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, Fiber Channel - Wireless LANs: applications,
requirements - Architecture of 802.11
 Unit I
HIGH SPEED NETWORKS

1.1 FRAME RELAY NETWORKS

Frame Relay often is described as a streamlined version of X.25, offering fewer of the robust
capabilities, such as windowing and retransmission of last data that are offered in X.25.
Frame Relay Devices
Devices attached to a Frame Relay WAN fall into the following two general categories:
• Data terminal equipment (DTE)
• Data circuit-terminating equipment (DCE)
DTEs generally are considered to be terminating equipment for a specific network and
typically are located on the premises of a customer. In fact, they may be owned by the
customer. Examples of DTE devices are terminals, personal computers, routers, and bridges.
DCEs are carrier-owned internetworking devices. The purpose of DCE equipment is to provide
clocking and switching services in a network, which are the devices that actually transmit data
through the WAN. In most cases, these are packet switches. Figure 10-1 shows the relationship
between the two categories of devices.

1.2 STANDARD FRAME RELAY FRAME

Standard Frame Relay frames consist of the fields illustrated in Figure

Figure Five Fields Comprise the Frame Relay Frame

Each frame relay PDU consists of the following fields:

1. Flag Field. The flag is used to perform high level data link synchronization which
indicates the beginning and end of the frame with the unique pattern 01111110. To
ensure that the 01111110 pattern does not appear somewhere inside the frame, bit
stuffing and destuffing procedures are used.
2. Address Field. Each address field may occupy either octet 2 to 3, octet 2 to 4, or octet 2
to 5, depending on the range of the address in use. A two-octet address field comprising
the EA=ADDRESS FIELD EXTENSION BITS and the
C/R=COMMAND/RESPONSE BIT.
3. DLCI-Data Link Connection Identifier Bits. The DLCI serves to identify the virtual
connection so that the r .iving end knows which information connection a frame
belongs to. Note that this DLCI has only local significance. A single physical channel
can multiplex several different virtual connections.
4. FECN, BECN, DE bits. These bits report congestion:
o FECN=Forward Explicit Congestion Notification bit
o BECN=Backward Explicit Congestion Notification bit
o DE=Discard Eligibility bit

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5. Information Field. A system parameter defines the maximum number of data bytes that
a host can pack into a frame. Hosts may negotiate the actual maximum frame length at
call set-up time. The standard specifies the maximum information field size
(supportable by any network) as at least 262 octets. Since end-to-end protocols
typically operate on the basis of larger information units, frame relay recommends that
the network support the maximum value of at least 1600 octets in order to avoid the
need for segmentation and reassembling by end-users.
Frame Check Sequence (FCS) Field. Since one cannot completely ignore the bit error-rate of
the medium, each switching node needs to implement error detection to avoid wasting
bandwidth due to the transmission of erred frames. The error detection mechanism used in
frame relay uses the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) as its basis.

1.3 CONGESTION-CONTROL MECHANISMS

Frame Relay reduces network overhead by implementing simple congestion-notification

mechanisms rather than explicit, per-virtual-circuit flow control. Frame Relay typically is
implemented on reliable network media, so data integrity is not sacrificed because flow control
can be left to higher-layer protocols. Frame Relay implements two congestion-notification
mechanisms:
• Forward-explicit congestion notification (FECN)
• Backward-explicit congestion notification (BECN) FECN and BECN each is controlled by
a single bit contained in the Frame Relay frame header. The Frame Relay frame header also
contains a Discard Eligibility (DE) bit, which is used to identify less important traffic that can
be dropped during periods of congestion.

1.4 FRAME RELAY VERSUS X.25

The design of X.25 aimed to provide error-free delivery over links with high error-rates. Frame
relay takes advantage of the new links with lower error-rates, enabling it to eliminate many of
the services provided by X.25. The elimination of functions and fields, combined with digital
links, enables frame relay to operate at speeds 20 times greater than X.25.
X.25 specifies processing at layers 1, 2 and 3 of the OSI model, while frame relay operates at
layers 1 and 2 only. This means that frame relay has significantly less processing to do at each
node, which improves throughput by an order of magnitude.
X.25 prepares and sends packets, while frame relay prepares and sends frames. X.25 packets
contain several fields used for error and flow control, none of which frame relay needs. The
frames in frame relay contain an expanded address field that enables frame relay nodes to
direct frames to their destinations with minimal processing .
X.25 has a fixed bandwidth available. It uses or wastes portions of its bandwidth as the load
dictates. Frame relay can dynamically allocate bandwidth during call setup negotiation at both
the physical and logical channel level.

1.5 ASYNCHRONOUS TRANSFER MODE (ATM)

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is an International Telecommunication Union-

Telecommunications Standards Section (ITU-T) standard for cell relay wherein information for
multiple service types, such as voice, video, or data, is conveyed in small, fixed-size cells.
ATM networks are connection-oriented.

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ATM is a cell-switching and multiplexing technology that combines the benefits of circuit
switching (guaranteed capacity and constant transmission delay) with those of packet switching
(flexibility and efficiency for intermittent traffic). It provides scalable bandwidth from a few
megabits per second (Mbps) to many gigabits per second (Gbps). Because of its asynchronous
nature, ATM is more efficient than synchronous technologies, such as time-division
multiplexing (TDM).
With TDM, each user is assigned to a time slot, and no other station can send in that time slot.
If a station has much data to send, it can send only when its time slot comes up, even if all
other time slots are empty. However, if a station has nothing to transmit when its time slot
comes up, the time slot is sent empty and is wasted. Because ATM is asynchronous, time slots
are available on demand with information identifying the source of the transmission contained
in the header of each ATM cell.
ATM transfers information in fixed-size units called cells. Each cell consists of 53
octets, or bytes. The first 5 bytes contain cell-header information, and the remaining 48 contain
the payload (user information). Small, fixed-length cells are well suited to transferring voice
and video traffic because such traffic is intolerant of delays that result from having to wait for a
large data packet to download, among other things. Figure illustrates the basic format of an
ATM cell. Figure :An ATM Cell Consists of a Header and Payload Data

1.6 ATM PROTOCOL ARCHITECTURE

ATM is almost similar to cell relay and packets witching using X.25and framerelay.like packet
switching and frame relay,ATM involves the transfer of data in discrete pi .s.also,like packet
switching and frame relay ,ATM allows multiple logical connections to multiplexed over a
single physical interface. in the case of ATM,the information flow on each logical connection
is organised into fixed-size packets, called cells. ATM is a streamlined protocol with minimal
error and flow control capabilities :this reduces the overhead of processing ATM cells and
reduces the number of overhead bits required with each cell, thus enabling ATM to operate at
high data rates.the use of fixed-size cells simplifies the processing required at each ATM
node,again supporting the use of ATM at high data rates. The ATM architecture uses a logical
model to describe the functionality that it supports. ATM functionality corresponds to the
physical layer and

part of the data link layer of the OSI reference model. . the protocol referencce model shown
makes reference to three separate planes:

user plane provides for user information transfer ,along with associated controls (e.g.,flow
control ,error control).
control plane performs call control and connection control functions.

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management plane includes plane management ,which performs management function related
to a system as a whole and provides coordination between all the planes ,and layer
management which performs management functions relating to resource and parameters
residing in its protocol entities .
The ATM reference model is composed of the following ATM layers:

• Physical layer—Analogous to the physical layer of the OSI reference model, the ATM
physical layer manages the medium-dependent transmission.
• ATM layer—Combined with the ATM adaptation layer, the ATM layer is roughly
analogous to the data link layer of the OSI reference model. The ATM layer is responsible for
the simultaneous sharing of virtual circuits over a physical link (cell multiplexing) and passing
cells through the ATM network (cell relay). To do this, it uses the VPI and VCI information in
the header of each ATM cell.
• ATM adaptation layer (AAL)—Combined with the ATM layer, the AAL is roughly
analogous to the data link layer of the OSI model. The AAL is responsible for isolating higherlayer
protocols from the details of the ATM processes. The adaptation layer prepares user data for
conversion into cells and segments the data into 48-byte cell payloads.
Finally, the higher layers residing above the AAL accept user data, arrange it into packets, and hand it
to the AAL. Figure :illustrates the ATM reference model.

1.7 LOGICALCONNECTION

 Virtual channel connections (VCC)

 Analogous to virtual circuit in X.25
 Basic unit of switching
 Between two end users
 Full duplex
 Fixed size cells
 Data, user-network exchange (control) and network-network exchange (network
management and routing)

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 Virtual path connection (VPC)
 Bundle of VCC with same end points

 Simplified network architecture..

 Increased network performance and reliability.
 Reduced processing.
 Short connection setup time..
 Enhanced network services.

1.7.1 CALL ESTABLISHMENT USING VPS

1.7.2 VIRTUAL CHANNEL CONNECTION USES

 Between end users

 End to end user data
 Control signals
 VPC provides overall capacity
□ VCC organization done by users
 Between end user and network
 Control signaling
 Between network entities

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 Network traffic management
 Routing

1.7.3 VP/VC CHARACTERISTICS

 Quality of service
 Switched and semi-permanent channel connections
 Call sequence integrity
 Traffic parameter negotiation and usage monitoring
 VPC only
 Virtual channel identifier restriction within VPC

1.7.4 CONTROL SIGNALLING VCC

 Done on separate connection

 Semi-permanent VCC
 Meta-signaling channel
 Used as permanent control signal channel
 User to network signaling virtual channel
 For control signaling
 Used to set up VCCs to carry user data
 User to user signaling virtual channel
 Within pre-established VPC
 Used by two end users without network intervention to establish and release
user to user VCC

1.7.5 CONTROL SIGNALING VPC

 Semi-permanent
 Customer controlled
 Network controlled

1.8 STRUCTURE OF AN ATM CELL

An ATM cell consists of a 5 byte header and a 48 byte payload. The payload size of 48 bytes
was a compromise between the needs of voice telephony and packet networks, obtained by a
simple averaging of the US proposal of 64 bytes and European proposal of

32, said by some to be motivated by a European desire not to need echo-cancellers on national
trunks.
ATM defines two different cell formats: NNI (Network-network interface) and UNI (User-
network interface). Most ATM links use UNI cell format.

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GFC = Generic Flow Control (4 bits) (default: 4-zero bits)

VPI = Virtual Path Identifier (8 bits UNI) or (12 bits NNI)
VCI = Virtual channel identifier (16 bits)
PT = PayloadType(3 bits)
CLP = Cell Loss Priority (1-bit)
HEC = Header Error Correction (8-bit CRC, polynomial = X8 + X2 + X + 1)

The PT field is used to designate various special kinds of cells for Operation and Management
(OAM) purposes, and to delineate packet boundaries in some AALs.
Several of ATM's link protocols use the HEC field to drive a CRC-Based Framing algorithm,
which allows the position of the ATM cells to be found with no overhead required beyond
what is otherwise needed for header protection. The 8-bit CRC is used to correct single-bit
header errors and detect multi-bit header errors. When multi-bit header errors are detected, the
current and subsequent cells are dropped until a cell with no header errors is found.
In a UNI cell the GFC field is reserved for a local flow control/submultiplexing system
between users. This was intended to allow several terminals to share a single network
connection, in the same way that two ISDN phones can share a single basic rate ISDN
connection. All four GFC bits must be zero by default.The NNI cell format is almost identical
to the UNI format, except that the 4-bit GFC field is re-allocated to the VPI field, extending the
VPI to 12 bits. Thus, a single NNI ATM interconnection is capable of addressing almost 212
VPs of up to almost 216 VCs each (in practice some of the VP and VC numbers are reserved).

1.8.1 GENERIC FLOW CONTROL

 Control traffic flow at user to network interface (UNI) to alleviate short term overload

 Two sets of procedures
 Uncontrolled transmission
 Controlled transmission
 Every connection either subject to flow control or not
 Subject to flow control

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  May be one group (A) default
 May be two groups (A and B) HIGH SPEED NETWORKS
 Flow control is from subscriber to network
 Controlled by network side
 Terminal equipment (TE) initializes two variables
 TRANSMIT flag to 1
 GO_CNTR (credit counter) to 0
 If TRANSMIT=1 cells on uncontrolled connection may be sent any time
 If TRANSMIT=0 no cells may be sent (on controlled or uncontrolled connections)
 If HALT r .ived, TRANSMIT set to 0 and remains until NO_HALT
 If TRANSMIT=1 and no cell to transmit on any uncontrolled connection:
 If GO_CNTR>0, TE may send cell on controlled connection
 Cell marked as being on controlled connection
 GO_CNTR decremented
 If GO_CNTR=0, TE may not send on controlled connection
 TE sets GO_CNTR to GO_VALUE upon r .iving SET signal
 Null signal has no effect

USE OF HALT

 To limit effective data rate on ATM

 Should be cyclic
 To reduce data rate by half, HALT issued to be in effect 50% of time
 Done on regular pattern over lifetime of connection

1.8.2 HEADER ERROR CONTROL

 8 bit error control field

 Calculated on remaining 32 bits of header
 Allows some error correction

 Initialize condition, r .iver error correction is default mode for single bit error
correction
 After cell is r .ived, HEC calculation & comparison is performed.
 No error is detected, r .iver remains error correction mode.
 If error is detected, it checks for single or multi bit error
 Mode is changed to detection mode.
 622.08Mbps

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 155.52Mbps
 51.84Mbps
 25.6Mbps
 Cell Based physical layer
 SDH based physical layer

1.8.3 EFFECT OF ERROR IN CELL HEADER

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1.9 ATM SERVICE CATEGORIES HIGH SPEED NETWORKS

□ Constant bit rate (CBR)

□ Real time variable bit rate (rt-VBR)
 Non-real time
□ Non-real time variable bit rate (nrt-VBR)
□ Available bit rate (ABR)
□ Unspecified bit rate (UBR)
□ Guaranteed frame rate (GFR)

Real Time Services:

 Constant bit rate (CBR)
□ It is used where Fixed data rate continuously available.
□ Tight upper bound on transfer delay.
□ Mostly used in Uncompressed audio and video.
Examples.
a. Video conferencing.
b. Interactive audio.
c. A/V distribution and retrieval.

 Real time variable bit rate (rt-VBR)

□ Time sensitive application.
□ Tightly constrained delay and delay variation.
□ rt-VBR applications transmit at a rate that varies with time.
Example : compressed video
a. Produces varying sized image frames.
b. Original (uncompressed) frame rate constant.
c. So compressed data rate varies.

□ Can statistically multiplex connections

i.e., allows network more flexible.

Non Real Time Services:

 Non-real time variable bit rate (nrt-VBR)
□ It is possible to characterize expected traffic flow.
□ So that Improve QoS in loss and delay.
□ End system specifies:.
a. Peak cell rate.
b. Sustainable or average rate.
c. Measure of how bursty traffic .

 Unspecified bit rate (UBR)

□ May be additional capacity over and above that used by CBR and VBR traffic.
a. Not all resources dedicated to CBR & VBR.
b. Due to Bursty nature of VBR, less than committed capacity is used.
□ For application that can tolerate some cell loss or variable delays

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 a. e.g. TCP based traffic.
□ Cells forwarded on FIFO basis. HIGH SPEED NETWORKS
□ Best efforts service.
i.e ., no initial commitment is made to a UBR
Source & no feedback concerning congestion is provided.

 Available bit rate (ABR)

Application using ABR specifies peak cell rate (PCR) and minimum cell rate
(MCR).
□ Resources allocated to give at least MCR..
□ Spare capacity shared among all ARB sources.
□ e.g. LAN interconnection.

 Guaranteed frame rate (GFR)

□ Designed to support IP backbone sub networks.
□ Better service than UBR for frame based traffic.
□ Including IP and Ethernet.

□ Optimize handling of frame based traffic passing from LAN through router to ATM
backbone.
□ Used by enterprise, carrier and ISP networks.
□ Consolidation and extension of IP over WAN.
□ ABR difficult to implement between routers over ATM network.
□ GFR better alternative for traffic originating on Ethernet
a. Network aware of frame/packet boundaries.
b. When congested, all cells from frame discarded.
c. User was Guaranteed minimum capacity.
d. Additional frames carried out if not congested.

1.10 ATM ADAPTION LAYER

 AAL layer is organized into 2 logical sub layers

1. Convergence sub layer
2. Segmentation and re-assembly sub layer

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 Convergence sublayer (CS)
 Support for specific applications
 AAL user attaches at SAP
 Segmentation and re-assembly sublayer (SAR)
 Packages and unpacks info r .ived from CS into cells
 Four types
 Type 1
 Type 2
 Type 3/4
 Type 5

AAL TYPE 1

 It is dealing with CBR source

 SAR packs the bits into cells for transmission and unpacks bits at r .ption.
 Block accompanied by sequence number so that error PDU’s (Protocol Data Unit) are
tracked.
 4 bit SN field consists of a convergence sub layers indicator (CSI) bit & 3 bit Sequence
Count (SC)
 Sequence Number Field (SNF) is an error code for error detection and possibly
correction on the sequence number field.

AAL TYPE 2

 It deals with VBR

 It is used in Analog applications

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AAL TYPE 3\4

 Connectionless - each block of data presented to SAR layer is tracked independently.

 Connected - possible to define multiple SAR logical connection over single ATM
connection
 Message mode - transfers framed data
 stream mode - service supports the transfer of low - speed continues data into low
delay requirements.

AAL TYPE 5

 Streamlined transport for connection oriented higher layer protocols

 To reduce protocol overhead.
 To reduce transmission overhead.
 To reduce adaptability to existing transport protocols.

1.11 HIGH-SPEED LANS

Emergence of High-Speed LANs

 2 Significant trends
 Computing power of PCs continues to grow rapidly
 Network computing
 Examples of requirements
 Centralized server farms
 Power workgroups
 High-speed local backbone

Classical Ethernet
 Bus topology LAN
 10 Mbps
 CSMA/CD medium access control protocol
 2 problems:
 A transmission from any station can be r .ived by all stations
 How to regulate transmission
Solution to First Problem
 Data transmitted in blocks called frames:
 User data
 Frame header containing unique address of destination station

1.12 CSMA/CD
Carrier Sense Multiple Access/ Carrier Detection
 If the medium is idle, transmit.
 If the medium is busy, continue to listen until the channel is idle, then transmit
immediately.
 If a collision is detected during transmission, immediately cease transmitting.
 After a collision, wait a random amount of time, then attempt to transmit again (repeat from
step 1).

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 HIGH SPEED NETWORKS

 <data rate> <signaling method> <max length>

 10Base5
 10 Mbps
 50-ohm coaxial cable bus
 Maximum segment length 500 meters
 10Base-T
 Twisted pair, maximum length 100 meters
 Star topology (hub or multipoint repeater at centralpoint)

1.12.1 HUBS AND SWITCHES

Hub
 Transmission from a station r .ived by central hub and retransmitted on all outgoing lines
 Only one transmission at a time

Bridge
 Frame handling done in software

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 Analyze and forward one frame at a time
 Store-and-forward

Layer 2 Switch
 Frame handling done in hardware
 Multiple data paths and can handle multiple frames at a time
 Can do cut-through
 Incoming frame switched to one outgoing line
 Many transmissions at same time

Layer 2 Switches
 Flat address space
 Broadcast storm
 Only one path between any 2 devices

 Solution 1: subnetworks connected by routers

 Solution 2: layer 3 switching, packet-forwarding logic in hardware

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Benefits of 10 Gbps Ethernet over ATM

 No expensive, bandwidth consuming conversion between Ethernet packets and ATM
cells
 Network is Ethernet, end to end
 IP plus Ethernet offers QoS and traffic policing capabilities approach that of ATM
 Wide variety of standard optical interfaces for 10 Gbps Ethernet

1.14 FIBRE CHANNEL

 2 methods of communication with processor:
 I/O channel
 Network communications
 Fibre channel combines both
 Simplicity and speed of channel communications
 Flexibility and interconnectivity of network communications

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 HIGH SPEED NETWORKS

1.14.1 I/O CHANNEL

 Hardware based, high-speed, short distance
 Direct point-to-point or multipoint communications link
 Data type qualifiers for routing payload
 Link-level constructs for individual I/O operations
 Protocol specific specifications to support e.g. SCSI
Fibre Channel Network-Oriented Facilities
 Full multiplexing between multiple destinations
 Peer-to-peer connectivity between any pair of ports
 Internetworking with other connection technologies
Fibre Channel Requirements
 Full duplex links with 2 fibres/link
 100 Mbps -800 Mbps

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 Distances up to 10 km
 Small connectors
 high-capacity
 Greater connectivity than existing multidrop channels
 Broad availability
 Support for multiple cost/performance levels
 Support for multiple existing interface command sets
Fibre Channel Protocol Architecture
 FC-0 Physical Media
 FC-1 Transmission Protocol
 FC-2 Framing Protocol
 FC-3 Common Services
 FC-4 Mapping

1.15 WIRELESS LAN REQUIREMENTS

 Throughput
 Number of nodes
 Connection to backbone
 Service area
 Battery power consumption
 Transmission robustness and security
 Collocated network operation
 License-free operation
 Handoff/roaming
 Dynamic configuration

1.16 IEEE 802.11 SERVICES

 Association
 Reassociation
 Disassociation
 Authentication
 Privacy

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 Access Points - perform the wireless to wired bridging function between networks
 Wireless medium - means of moving frames from station to station
 Station - computing devices with wireless network interfaces
 Distribution System - backbone network used to relay frames between access points
 On wireless LAN, any station within radio range of other devices can transmit
 Any station within radio range can r .ive
 Authentication: Used to establish identity of stations to each other
 Wired LANs assume access to physical connection conveys authority to connect
to LAN
 Not valid assumption for wireless LANs
□ Connectivity achieved by having properly tuned antenna
 Authentication service used to establish station identity
 802.11 s upports several authentication schemes
 Range from relatively insecure handshaking to public-key encryption schemes
 802.11 requires mutually acceptable, successful authentication before
association
 MAC layer covers three functional areas
 Reliable data delivery
 Access control
 Security
□ Beyond our scope802.11 physical and MAC layers subject to
unreliability
□ Noise, interference, and other propagation effects result in loss of
frames
□ Even with error-correction codes, frames may not successfully be
r .ived
□ Can be dealt with at a higher layer, such as TCP
□ However, retransmission timers at higher layers typically order of
seconds
□ More efficient to deal with errors at the MAC level
□ If noACK within short period of time, retransmit
□ 802.11 includes frame exchange protocol
□ Station r .iving frame returns acknowledgment (ACK) frame
□ Exchange treated as atomic unit
□ Not interrupted by any other station

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