Circuit and packet switching

By, J. Dheeba/SCOPE

J. Dheeba/SCOPE
Learning outcomes
• Familiarize with the switching concepts.
• Understand the working principle of different switching techniques

J. Dheeba/SCOPE
Switching
• Whenever we have multiple devices, we have the problem of how to
connect them to make one-to-one communication possible.
• A switched network consists of a series of interlinked nodes, called
switches.
• Switches are devices capable of creating temporary connections
between two or more devices linked to the switch.
• In a switched network, some of these nodes are connected to the end
systems (computers or telephones, for example). Others are used
only for routing.

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• A switch is connected to a set of links and, for each of these links,
runs the appropriate data link protocol to communicate with the
node at the other end of the link.
• A switch’s primary job is to receive incoming packets on one of its
links and to transmit them on some other link.
• This process is called switching.

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Switching in networking

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Taxonomy of switched network

Switching

Circuit Switching Message Switching Packet Switching

Virtual circuit Datagram

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Circuit switched network
• A connection between two stations is a dedicated path made of one
or more links.
• Each link is normally divided into n channels by using FDM or TDM

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 Setup Phase
a circuit (channel) is reserved on
each link, and the combination of
circuits or channels defines the
dedicated path
data-transfer phase
Tear down

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• Circuit switching takes place at the physical layer.
• Before starting communication, the stations must make a reservation
for the resources to be used during the communication.
• These resources, such as channels (bandwidth in FDM and time slots in TDM),
switch buffers, switch processing time, and switch input/output ports, must
remain dedicated during the entire duration of data transfer until the
teardown phase.
• The data are a continuous flow sent by the source station and
received by the destination station, although there may be periods of
silence.

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• At the physical layer, we can have only circuit switching
• At the data-link layer, we can have packet switching. However, the
term packet in this case means frames or cells.
• At the network layer, we can have packet switching. In this case,
either a virtual-circuit approach or a datagram approach can be used.
• At the application layer, we can have only message switching. The
communication at the application layer occurs by exchanging
messages.

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J. Dheeba/SCOPE
• Efficiency
• resources are allocated during the entire duration of the connection
• These resources are unavailable to other connections.
• In a telephone network, people normally terminate the communication when
they have finished their conversation.
• However, in computer networks, a computer can be connected to another
computer even if there is no activity for a long time.
• In this case, allowing resources to be dedicated means that other connections
are deprived.

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• Delay
• the delay in this type of network is minimal.
• During data transfer the data are not delayed at each switch; the resources
are allocated for the duration of the connection

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Packet switching
• If the message is going to pass through a packet-switched network, it
needs to be divided into packets of fixed or variable size.

3 MB

Packets
1 MB 1 MB 1 MB

• In packet switching, there is no resource allocation for a packet

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• there is no reserved bandwidth on the links.
• Resources are allocated on demand
• allocation is done on a first come, first-served basis
• Each packet will have a source and destination IP address
with sequence number.
• Sequence number helps in ; reordering the packet, find
out the missing packets and send acknowledgements

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• Two approaches for packet switching
• Datagram approach
• Virtual circuit networks

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 Datagram approach
• each packet is treated independently of all others.
• Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams
• Datagrams contains destination information and the intermediate
devices use this information to forward the data packet to the correct
destination
1 2 3 4
Source
A

Destination
B

C
J. Dheeba/SCOPE
 Datagram approach
• each packet is treated independently of all others.
• Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams
• Datagrams contains destination information and the intermediate
devices use this information to forward the data packet to the correct
destination
Source
A
4 3
2 1
D

Destination
B

C
J. Dheeba/SCOPE
 Datagram approach
• each packet is treated independently of all others.
• Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams
• Datagrams contains destination information and the intermediate
devices use this information to forward the data packet to the correct
destination
Source
A
4 3
2 1
D

Destination
B

C
J. Dheeba/SCOPE
 Datagram approach
• each packet is treated independently of all others.
• Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams
• Datagrams contains destination information and the intermediate
devices use this information to forward the data packet to the correct
destination
Source
A

1 D
4 3

Destination
B
2
C
J. Dheeba/SCOPE
 Datagram approach
• each packet is treated independently of all others.
• Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams
• Datagrams contains destination information and the intermediate
devices use this information to forward the data packet to the correct
destination
Source
A
3
D
1

Destination
B
4
C 2
J. Dheeba/SCOPE
 Datagram approach
• each packet is treated independently of all others.
• Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams
• Datagrams contains destination information and the intermediate
devices use this information to forward the data packet to the correct
destination
Source
A

3 D

1
Destination
B
2
C 4
J. Dheeba/SCOPE
 Datagram approach
• each packet is treated independently of all others.
• Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams
• Datagrams contains destination information and the intermediate
devices use this information to forward the data packet to the correct
destination
Source
A

4 1 2 3 D

Destination
B

C
J. Dheeba/SCOPE
 Datagram approach
• each packet is treated independently of all others.
• Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams
• Datagrams contains destination information and the intermediate
devices use this information to forward the data packet to the correct
destination
Source
A

4 3 2 1 D

Destination
B

C
J. Dheeba/SCOPE
 Datagram approach
• each packet is treated independently of all others.
• Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams
• Datagrams contains destination information and the intermediate
devices use this information to forward the data packet to the correct
destination
Source
A

4 3 2 1 D

Destination
B

C
J. Dheeba/SCOPE
• This approach can cause the datagrams of a transmission to arrive at
their destination out of order with different delays between the
packets.
• Packets may also be lost or dropped because of a lack of resources
• datagram networks are sometimes referred to as connectionless
networks
• connectionless here means that the switch (packet switch) does not
keep information about the connection state.
• There are no setup or teardown phases.

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• Routing Table (forwarding table)
• how are the packets routed to their destinations in a datagram network?
• In this type of network, each switch (or packet switch) has a routing table
which is based on the destination address
Destination address Output Port

• The routing tables are dynamic and are updated periodically.

• This is different from the table of a circuit switched network (discussed later)
in which each entry is created when the setup phase is completed and
deleted when the teardown phase is over

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• Example, for the given network the forwarding table or the routing
table is as follows,

Forwarding table/routing table for Switch 2

Destination Port
A 3
B 0
C 3
D 3
E 2
F 1
G 1
H 2

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• Destination Address
• Every packet in a datagram network carries a header that contains,
the destination address of the packet.
• When the switch receives the packet, this destination address is
examined; the routing table is consulted to find the corresponding
port through which the packet should be forwarded

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• Efficiency
• datagram network is better than that of a circuit-switched network;
• resources are allocated only when there are packets to be transferred.
• If a source sends a packet and there is a delay of a few minutes before
another packet can be sent, the resources can be reallocated during these
minutes for other packets from other sources.

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• Delay
• There may be greater delay in a datagram network than in a virtual-circuit
network.
• Although there are no setup and teardown phases, each packet may
experience a wait at a switch before it is forwarded.
• In addition, since not all packets in a message necessarily travel through the
same switches, the delay is not uniform for the packets of a message.

J. Dheeba/SCOPE
• Consider two terminals A and B connected in the network with a help
of router Transmission Delay in a link
Link capacity or the data rate is R bits/sec

R Bits/sec

T = L/R sec

A B

L Length of the message is L bits Total time to send this L bits in

a link is L/R sec
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Calculating transmission delay in network
• Suppose that a user at one end of Canada sends a 1-Mbit file to a
remote server on the other end over a data link operating at 64
kbps.

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• Note: Bit rate
• In computer networks, the bit rate of the physical layer is always
expressed in bits per second.
• Conversions
Bit rate Bits per second
1 Kbps 103
1 Mbps 106
1 Gbps 109
1 Tbps 1012

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Virtual circuit approach
• referred to as a connection-oriented model, requires setting up a virtual
connection from the source host to the destination host before any data is
sent.
• A pre-planned route is set before the messages are sent. Route is decided
using virtual circuit identifier
• Path is fixed for the duration of a logical connection
• connection setup phase, it is necessary to establish a “connection state” in
each of the switches between the source and destination hosts.
• All packets travel in the same path as in circuit switching network.
• It is implemented at the data link layer
• Connection state is an entry in virtual circuit table
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• Virtual table
• virtual circuit identifier (VCI) – unique identifier which carries the connection
of the switch. (local address)
• incoming interface
• outgoing interface

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• Sending data between host A and host B.
• manually create a new virtual connection between host A and host B
• First the administrator identifies a path through the network from A
to B
• Administrator will pick a VCI value which is currently not used in the
link

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 VC table Switch 1 Table
• For our example, Suppose the VCI value 5
Incoming Incoming Outgoing Outgoing
is chosen for the link from host A to
interface VCI interface VCI
switch 1
2 5 1 11
• 11 is chosen for the link from switch 1 to
switch 2
VC table Switch 2 Table
• 7 is chosen for the link from switch 2 to
switch 3

VC table Switch 3 Table

4
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• Example, for the given network the forwarding table or the routing
table is as follows,

Forwarding table/routing table for Switch 2

Destination Port
A 3
B 0
C 3
D 3
E 2
F 1
G 0
H 0

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• The following figure shows a routing table of a switch.

Find the output port for packets with the following destination
addresses:
Packet 1: 7176 Packet 2: 1233 Packet 3: 8766 Packet 4: 9144

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Solution:
Packet 1: 2
Packet 2: 3
Packet 3: 3
Packet 4: 2

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Performance
• Bandwidth
• bandwidth in hertz (4kHz)
• bandwidth in bits per second. (100Mbps – means that the network can
transmit 100 megabits in one second)
• Throughput
• measure of how fast we can actually send data through a network
• A link may have a bandwidth of B bps, but we can only send T bps through
this link with T always less than B (T is the actual measurement )
• Delay
• how long it takes for an entire message to completely arrive at the destination
from the time the first bit is sent out from the source

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• Throughput
Bandwidth - 10 Mbps

• The network has the capability of passing 12,000 frame per minute each
frame carrying 10,000 bits. What is the throughput of the network

1 frame = 10,000 bits

12,000 frames = 12,000 x 10,000 bits

Throughput = 12,000 x 10,000 bits

60

= 2,000,000 bps = 2 Mbps

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• Delay (latency)
• four types of delay that contribute to overall delay
Latency = propagation time + transmission time + queuing time + processing delay
• Propagation Time
• Propagation time measures the time required for a bit to travel from the source to the
destination.

Propagation time depends on distance and speed.

Propagation delay = distance (m) / speed (m/sec)

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• What is the propagation time if the distance between the two points
is 12,000 km? Assume the propagation speed to be 2.4 × 108 m/s in
cable.

• Solution
Propagation delay = distance (m) / speed (m/sec)
= 12,000 km / 2.4 x 108
= 12,000 x 1000 / 2.4 x 108

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Transmission time

• Consider two terminals A and B connected in the network with a help

of router Transmission Delay in a link
Link capacity or the data rate is R bits/sec

R Bits/sec

T = L/R sec

A B

L Length of the message is L bits Total time to send this L bits in

a link is L/R sec
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• Queueing Delay: time spent waiting in a queue at any point along the
route

<= 5 Mbps 5 Mbps

A B

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• Queueing Delay: time spent waiting in a queue at any point along the
route
P3 P2

10 Mbps P1

5 Mbps

A B

Processing Delay: time required to process a packet

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• Bandwidth-Delay Product
• bandwidth-delay product defines the number of bits that can fill the link.
• How many bits can fit on a link with a 2 ms delay if the bandwidth of
the link 1 Mbps

No. of bits = Bandwidth x delay

= 1 Mbps x 2ms
= 12,000 bits

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What is the length of a bit in a channel with a propagation speed of 2 x
108 m/s if the channel bandwidth is
a. 1 Mbps?
b. 10 Mbps?
c. 100 Mbps?

(bit length) = (propagation speed) × (bit duration)

Bit duration = 1/bandwidth

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• Practice problems for this chapter is given in teams

• Thank you.

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