The Network Layer – Routing

and Congestion Control

The network layer is the layer above the data link layer and below the transport layer in the OSI model. The need for
the network layer arises when two end systems are attached to different networks . In such cases there has to be a
method to identify separate networks .Moreover these two networks may be a part of the large internet work .So, there
has to be routing mechanism to find out the best part from source to destination machine. Hence , the basic purpose of
the network layer is to send packets from source machine all the way to destination machine

The Network layer is needed for the following two reasons

Logical Addressing: Distinguish between networks and separate them form each other

Routing: Identify the best path between source and destination and create such path using switching technique

Design Issues
The network layer routes the data from source to destination using switching , addressing and routing .
Packet Switching
Need of Switching:
1) 2 end systems belong to same or different networks
2) A Subnet or a network cloud separates them.
3) The source sends a packet to nearest Router/ Switch on its own network
4) The packet is stored there, verified and forwarded ahead to the nest router.
5) This is called as “Store and Forward― switching
6) Packet Switching can be achieved in 2 ways:
Connectionless Service: Datagram Packet Switching
Connection Oriented Services: Virtual Circuit Packet
Switching.

Datagram Packet Switching

1) No connection is established between end systems
2) Each packet is transmitted independently and contains full source and destination address
3) Packets may take different routes and arrive in different order, hence have sequence numbers.
4) Packets are called as “Datagram― subnet is called as “Datagram Subnet―
5) Subnet is unreliable.
6) The host will do error and flow control.
7) The router will only store and forward the packets

Virtual Circuit Packet Switching

1) This avoids router selection for every packet.
2) A virtual circuit is established between 2 end systems. Route is decided at this time.
3) Each router stores a virtual circuit table containing information of the Open virtual circuits.
4) For end systems it appears as a physical connection between them, however each virtual circuit is a logical path
through the internetwork.
5) All the packets follow a predefined path.
6) Packets do not carry source and destination address. They need to carry a small VCI (Virtual Circuit Identifier)
7) Routers do not recalculate the route.
8) VC can be permanent or temporary depending on the requirement

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Services Provided to the Transport Layer
1) The transport layer has to be shielded from the heterogeneity of the networks
2) Hide number, type and topology of the routers in the subnet
3) The addressing scheme designed by the network layer and provided to the transport layer should be uniform across all
the types of networks.
4) The services provided (connectionless or connection oriented) should be independent of the router technology.

Implementation of Connectionless service

If the network layer provides connectionless service then design of the network layer is as follows
1) No connection is established between the end systems before transmission
2) Each packet is sent independent of other packets and so each packet contains full source and destination address
3) Packets to the same destination may take different paths and may arrive out of order so sequence numbers have
be used to identify packets
4) Packets are called datagrams. The subnet is considered to be unreliable i.e packets can get lost or damaged
5) The hosts do flow and error control
6) The job of the router is to simply store and forward packets

Implementation of Connection-Oriented service

1) For a connection-oriented service design of the subnet is a virtual circuit network
2) A virtual circuit is established between the source and destination machine
3) Each router stores a virtual circuit table containing information about virtual circuits.
4) Each virtual-circuit is essentially a logical path through the internetwork. This means that for end systems, it
appears as if a physical connection is established between the end systems but it is actually a switched path where
switching occurs from node to node
5) All packets from source to destination follow the predefined route
6) Since each packet follows the same route, the packet need not carry complete addresses .Only a small Virtual
Circuit Identifier (VCI) is needed)
7) Routers do not recalculate the route for individual packets

Comparison between Virtual Circuit and Datagram Subnets

Feature Virtual Circuit Subnet Datagram Subnet
Circuit Setup It is required which takes time and consumes No circuit setup required
resources Hence transmission can start immediately
Packet Size Packet Headers are short as packet has to Each packet has to carry a complete source
carry only a small VCI and destination address
Addressing The VCI identifies the path over which the The destination address in the packet is used
packet has been sent to determine the path
Packet Order Since all the packets to the destination follow Packets may arrive out of order since they
same virtual circuit, they arrive in order are routed independently
Congestion control Congestion control is possible if resources are Congestion Control is difficult
allocated in advance during circuit setup
Quality of service Better Difficult to guarantee

Logical Addressing
The important job of the network layer is to find destination address.
2) Each machine has a MAC address called as physical address, which is the address of the NIC of the machine.
3) MAC address is independent of networks and are unique.
4) Logical addressing is network dependent and global.
5) It helps identify the network in which the machine belongs.
6) IP addressing is a logical addressing used in TCP/IP protocol.

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IPv4 Addresses
The IP address used in internet is a 32-bit long address .This address is unique and universal. No two machines on
the internet can have the same IP address.

Address Space: 232 = 4,294,976,296 addresses.

Notations:

Binary :
4 byte = 32 bit address
Ex: 10101010.10101010.10101010.10101010
This must be exactly 32 bits
Only 0 & 1 is allowed.

Dotted decimal notation:

It is difficult to read and write a binary number. Hence dotted decimal is used.
Ex: 128.5.3.16
The format is A.B.C.D and the range is 0 to 255
Negative integers are not allowed
No leading 0’s are allowed eg : 004 is not allowed

Classful Addressing
• The address space is divided into classes.
• There are 4 classes namely A B C D & E
• Now a days classless addressing is used.
• In binary the first few bits and in decimal the first number identifies the class

Classes
• Class A : First Byte 0 or First Decimal 0 – 127
• Class B : First Byte 10 or First Decimal 128 – 191
• Class C : First Byte 110 or First Decimal 192 – 223
• Class D : First Byte 1110 or First Decimal 224 – 239
• Class E : First Byte 1111 or First Decimal 240 - 255

Netid and Hostid:

• The classes A B & C are divided into Netid and Hostid.
• Classes D & E are not divided.
• Class D is used for multicasting
• Class E is used for reserved addresses.

Class A Class B Class C

Netid is 8 bit(First bit is 0) Netid is 16 Bit (First 2 bits are 10) Netid is 24 Bit (First 3 bits are 110)

Hence there can be 128 Hence there can be 214 networks Hence there can be 221 networks
networks (netid 0 to 127)

Hosts are 224 Hosts are 216 Hosts are 28

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Address Mask:
• The router outside the network has a default mask to identify a network and route the data.
• The default mask is a 32 bit address with all netid portions containing 1’s and hostid 0’s
• The router looks at the first byte and identified the class and applies mask. (AND)

Network Address:
• The network address is different than Netid.
• It is netid and hostid with all the hostid bits as 0’s
• Ex: 109.0.0.0, 164.25.0.0, 200.11.8.0 etc.

Subnetting and Supernetting:

• Subnetting is the process to divide a network into smaller subnets.
• Supernetting means combining several small networks to form a supernet.
• For Subnetting part of Host id is borroed and made as subnet id.
• This given rise to 3 address:
Netid – gives network address
Subnetid – gives subnet address
Hostid – gives the address of the host.

Wastage of addresses:
• The classful scheme is fixed address scheme.
• This results in wastage of addresses.
• EX: Organization having 20 hosts will take class C address and 236 addresses will be waste.
• Hence classless addressing is used.

Classless Addressing:
• Classful is fixed addressing scheme, hence there is a lot of wastage of address
• Hence classless addressing is implemented.
• Here addresses are assigned in blocks, however there aren’t any classes.
• The addresses must be contiguous
• The number of addresses must be power of 2
• The first address of the block must be divisible by the number of addresses.

Network Address Translator:

• For communication unique IP address is required on internet.
• As the users grow it is not possible to assign a unique IP address due to limitation
• NAT is used to solve the above problem.
• The networks which are not connected to internet are assigned Private IP addresses.
• These addresses can not be routed through Internet.

Private IP address space:

Start End Network Size
24
10.0.0.0 10.255.255.255
2
20
172.16.0.0 172.31.255.255
2
16
192.168.0.0 192.168.255.255
2

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Using Private IP:
• A network is assigned a single IP address.
• All machines within the network are assigned a private IP and use the same while communicating internally.
• While communicating with the outside world they use the Public IP address assigned to them.

Address Translation:
• An address translation takes place between the private IP address and the public address.
• All the outgoing packets go through the NAT translator which replaces the private source address with the public
IP.
• All the incoming packets are received by the NAT router which replaces the public IP by the private IP address.
• The NAT router maintains a translation table.
• The table contains a mapping between the private and public address.
• The translation table also stores the port address of the private IP addresses.

Private address Private port External address External port Trasport Protocol

172.18.3.1 1400 25.8.3.2 80 TCP

172.18.3.2 1401 25.8.3.2 80 TCP

172.18.3.3 1402 25.8.3.3 81 TCP

IPV4 Datagram:
• The internet packet in the IP layer is called as IP datagram.
• The size of the datagram depends on the application that sends data.
• It can contain data form single byte to 65536 bytes.
• The header can be 20 to 60 bytes in length.

Fields in Datagram:
• VER (Version): Defines the version IPv4 or IPv6
• HLEN: Defines the length of the header in multiples of 4. The 4 bits will represent numbers between 0 to 15 which
is then multiplied by 4 to get the header size.
• Type of service (TOS): This is 8 bit defines how to handle the datagram? 3 bits define the priority and 4 bits define
the TOS. TOS are
– D Minimize Delay (Ex: Telnet and Rlogin)
– T Maximum Throughput (Ex: FTP)
– R Maximum Reliability (Ex: Network management and Routing)
– C Minimize cost.
• One of these bits can only be turned on. All 0’s represent normal service.
• Total length: This defines total length of IP (Header+ Data) This is 16 bit field, hence the maximum is 65535.
• Identification: 16 bit field used in fragmentation. Data gram is divided in fragments to match the network size.
This field carries the sequence numbers.
• Flags: 3 bit field defines whether the datagram can be fragmented or not. The flags are D and M. D = Don’t
Fragment and M = More. Value o indicates last fragment.
• Fragment offset: 13 bit field is used as a pointer that shows offset of the data in the original datagram that is
fragmented.
• Time to Live (TTL): 8 bit field indicates the number of routers the datagram can pass. It is initialized by the sender
by some value and decremented by the router. Once this becomes 0 the datagram is thrown away and the sender
is notified with message.
• Protocol: This indicates the upper layer protocol such as TCP, UDP etc.
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 • Header Checksum: 16 bit field used to check the integrity of the header ONLY.
• Source & Destination IP address: Each address field is 32 bit.
• Options: This field is of variable length and allows the packet to request special features such as security level,
route etc.

Checksum:
• This is used for error correction.
• This is calculated on the header of the data and not on the data.
• This is an error detection method.

Options:
• IPV4 datagram contains a fixed part of 20 bytes and a variable part of 40 bytes (Max = 60)
• There are 2 types of options
– Single byte options
– Multiple byte options

Single byte options:

• No Operations: 1 byte option used as a filter between options
• End of Operations: 1 byte option used to indicate end of options

Multiple byte options (Length and Data field):

• Record router: This is used for storing the IP addresses of the internet routers that can handle the data. It can
maximum store 9 addresses.
• Strict Source route: It indicates a fixed route that the datagram must follow while travelling
• Loose Source route: This is same as strict source route. But the path is not rigid. The datagram can visit some
alternate path as well.
Time stamp: This records the time when the datagram reaches a router. Used for tracking the delay in the network

Routing :

Routing is one of the important tasks of the network layer. The network layer has to perform routing to deliver packets
from the source machine to the destination machine in an internetwork.

Routing protocols use routing algorithms to build and maintain routing databases or tables and determine which route to
use when forwarding packets.

Characteristics of routing algorithms :

• Correctness: Subnet must decide the correct path between the source and destination.

• Simplicity: Must be simple in terms of data structure and algorithms used.

• Robustness: Must be able to survive failure of hardware and software, changes in topology, traffic in the network
and ensure that the network works smoothly.

• Stability: It must perform consistently and deliver correct results. Must also respond to good news and bad news.

• Fairness: Every host must be given an equal opportunity to transmit the data.

• Optimality: Must utilize the maximum channel bandwidth. Also make use of all the paths available in the network.

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Types of routing algorithms:

Routing algorithms can be classified into two types depending upon the way routing decisions are made.

Rounting Algorithms

Non Adaptive Adaptive

Non adaptive algorithms: These are static routing algorithms. They do not calculate the route based on the current
network traffic and conditions. Routes are decided in advance and do not reflect the changes in the network.

Eg: Shortest path algorithm, Flooding algorithm.

Adaptive algorithms: These are dynamic routing algorithms. They adapt according to network conditions.

Eg: Distance Vector Routing, Link State Routing.

Congestion Control:

• Congestion is a situation in which the number of packets in the network are greater than the capacity of the
network.

• Congestion degrades the network performance.

• Packets will be discarded due to non availability of buffers. Sender will retransmit the data adding to the
congestion.

• At high congestion, the network packets will not be delivered and the network will fail.

Causes of congestion :

1. Insufficient memory to hold packets within an intermediate processor will cause packets to be discarded.
The sender will retransmit, thereby increasing the no. of packets.
2. Slow processors can cause congestion. If the intermediate processors process packets very slowly or do
tasks like route calculation and table updation slowly, queues will build up.
3. Low-bandwidth lines will allow less packets to move per unit time,thereby increasing propagation delay
for the others.
4. Failed routers or processors due to which there is excessive load on other routers in the network.
5. Excess traffic to some specific host of the network .

Congestion control:

• Open loop congestion control (preventive)

• Closed loop congestion control (removal)

1. Open loop congestion control:

• Congestion handled by the source or destination

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 • Good retransmission policy is required for optimal efficiency.
• Good sliding window protocol is required so that retransmission is less and many packets can be sent.
• Use piggybacking so that excess traffic can be minimized.
• Good discarding policy is required to determine which packets to discard and when.
Closed loop congestion control:
• This will try to remove the congestion once it occurs.
• This mechanism monitors the network through feedbacks and takes corrective actions.
• Monitoring of system is done. Parameters used to monitor are average delay, %tage of packets discarded, no of
retransmissions etc.
• Transfer the information to the point where the action needs to be taken.
• Adjustment of the operation to adjust the network.

Congestion prevention policies:

• These policies are implemented in Open loop congestion control.
• The focus is to avoid the congestion rather than allowing it to come.
• The policies are applied in Data Link layer, Network Layer and Transport layer.

Data Link Layer policies:

• Retransmission Policy: How fast the sender will time out and retransmits the data?
• Buffering policy: Whether the out-of-order packets are to be buffered or not?
• Acknowledgment Policy: Whether to send separate acknowledgment or not?
• Flow control Policy: This will ensure proper coordination between sender and receiver and prevents congestion.

Network layer policy:

• Datagram subnet or virtual circuit subnet: Most of the congestion control algorithms work on virtual circuit
subnet.
• Packet queuing policy: The number of queues in the router, order of processing of the packets are important
factors for congestion.
• Packet discard policy: When a packet to be discarded and which to be discarded?
• Routing algorithms: Algorithm must select the routes fairly, so that the traffic is distributed evenly.
• Packet lifetime management: Lost and duplicate packets can move in the network. Such packets must be
discarded as and when required. Appropriate lifetime must be assigned to each packet.

• Transport Layer:
• This takes care of process to process delivery where as data link takes care of node to node delivery.
• The issues are same as data link layer.

Network Layer Devices – Router:

A router is a layer-3 device which performs the job of routing packets based on the logical address of host
machines. It uses a routing table for making routing decisions
Routing operation
• Routers maintain routing tables, which tell the location of every network on the internetwork.
• When a router receives a packet to be sent, it looks in its table to find the route to the final destination.
• A packet may make several hops from one router to another before reaching its destination.

Routers work independently of the lower layer protocols and only deal with interconnect

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