What is a Computer Network?

o Computer Network is a group of computers connected with each other through wires,
optical fibres or optical links so that various devices can interact with each other through
a network.
o The aim of the computer network is the sharing of resources among various devices.
o In the case of computer network technology, there are several types of networks that vary
from simple to complex level.

Components Of Computer Network:

Major components of a computer network are:

NIC(National interface card)

NIC is a device that helps the computer to communicate with another device. The network
interface card contains the hardware addresses, the data-link layer protocol use this address to
identify the system on the network so that it transfers the data to the correct destination.

There are two types of NIC: wireless NIC and wired NIC.

o Wireless NIC: All the modern laptops use the wireless NIC. In Wireless NIC, a
connection is made using the antenna that employs the radio wave technology.
o Wired NIC: Cables use the wired NIC to transfer the data over the medium.

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Hub

Hub is a central device that splits the network connection into multiple devices. When computer
requests for information from a computer, it sends the request to the Hub. Hub distributes this
request to all the interconnected computers.

Switches

Switch is a networking device that groups all the devices over the network to transfer the data to
another device. A switch is better than Hub as it does not broadcast the message over the
network, i.e., it sends the message to the device for which it belongs to. Therefore, we can say
that switch sends the message directly from source to the destination.

Cables and connectors

Cable is a transmission media that transmits the communication signals. There are three types
of cables:

o Twisted pair cable: It is a high-speed cable that transmits the data over 1Gbps or more.
o Coaxial cable: Coaxial cable resembles like a TV installation cable. Coaxial cable is
more expensive than twisted pair cable, but it provides the high data transmission speed.
o Fibre optic cable: Fibre optic cable is a high-speed cable that transmits the data using
light beams. It provides high data transmission speed as compared to other cables. It is
more expensive as compared to other cables, so it is installed at the government level.

Router

Router is a device that connects the LAN to the internet. The router is mainly used to connect the
distinct networks or connect the internet to multiple computers.

Modem

Modem connects the computer to the internet over the existing telephone line. A modem is not
integrated with the computer motherboard. A modem is a separate part on the PC slot found on
the motherboard.

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Uses Of Computer Network
o Resource sharing: Resource sharing is the sharing of resources such as programs,
printers, and data among the users on the network without the requirement of the physical
location of the resource and user.
o Server-Client model: Computer networking is used in the server-client model. A server
is a central computer used to store the information and maintained by the system
administrator. Clients are the machines used to access the information stored in the server
remotely.
o Communication medium: Computer network behaves as a communication medium
among the users. For example, a company contains more than one computer has an email
system which the employees use for daily communication.
o E-commerce: Computer network is also important in businesses. We can do the business
over the internet. For example, amazon.com is doing their business over the internet, i.e.,
they are doing their business over the internet.

Network Hardware
There is no generally accepted taxonomy into which all computer networks fit, but two
dimensions stand out as important: transmission technology and scale. Broadly speaking, there
are two types of transmission technology that are in widespread use. They are as follows:
1. Broadcast links.
2. Point-to-point links.
Broadcast networks have a single communication channel that is shared by all the machines on
the network. Short messages, called packets in certain contexts, sent by any machine are
received by all the others. An address field within the packet specifies the intended recipient.
Upon receiving a packet, a machine checks the address field. If the packet is intended for the
receiving machine, that machine processes the packet; if the packet is intended for some other
machine, it is just ignored. When a packet with this code is transmitted, it is received and
processed by every machine on the network. This mode of operation is called broadcasting.
Some broadcast systems also support transmission to a subset of the machines, something known
as multicasting. One possible scheme is to reserve one bit to indicate multicasting. The
remaining n - 1 address bits can hold a group number. Each machine can ''subscribe'' to any or all

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of the groups. When a packet is sent to a certain group, it is delivered to all machines subscribing
to that group.
In contrast, point-to-point networks consist of many connections between individual pairs of
machines. To go from the source to the destination, a packet on this type of network may have to
first visit one or more intermediate machines. Often multiple routes, of different lengths, are
possible, so finding good ones is important in point-to-point networks. As a general rule
(although there are many exceptions), smaller, geographically localized networks tend to use
broadcasting, whereas larger networks usually are point-to-point. Point-to-point transmission
with one sender and one receiver is sometimes called unicasting.
Local Area Networks Local area networks, generally called LANs, are privately-owned
networks within a single building or campus of up to a few kilometers in size.
They are widely used to connect personal computers and workstations in company offices and
factories to share resources (e.g., printers) and exchange information.
LANs are distinguished from other kinds of networks by three characteristics:
(1) their size,
(2) their transmission technology, and
(3) their topology.
LANs are restricted in size, which means that the worst-case transmission time is bounded and
known in advance. Knowing this bound makes it possible to use certain kinds of designs that
would not otherwise be possible. It also simplifies network management.
LANs may use a transmission technology consisting of a cable to which all the machines are
attached, like the telephone company party lines once used in rural areas. Traditional LANs run
at speeds of 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps, have low delay (microseconds or nanoseconds), and make
very few errors. Newer LANs operate at up to 10 Gbps. In this book, we will adhere to tradition
and measure line speeds in megabits/sec (1 Mbps is 1,000,000 bits/sec) and gigabits/sec (1 Gbps
is 1,000,000,000 bits/sec).
Various topologies are possible for broadcast LANs. In a bus (i.e., a linear cable) network, at any
instant at most one machine is the master and is allowed to transmit. All other machines are
required to refrain from sending

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A second type of broadcast system is the ring. In a ring, each bit propagates around on its own,
not waiting for the rest of the packet to which it belongs. Typically, each bit circumnavigates the
entire ring in the time it takes to 21 transmit a few bits, often before the complete packet has
even been transmitted. As with all other broadcast systems, some rule is needed for arbitrating
simultaneous accesses to the ring. Various methods, such as having the machines take turns, are
in use. IEEE 802.5 (the IBM token ring), is a ring-based LAN operating at 4 and 16 Mbps. FDDI
is another example of a ring network.
Metropolitan Area Networks A metropolitan area network, or MAN, covers a city. The best-
known example of a MAN is the cable television network available in many cities. This system
grew from earlier community antenna systems used in areas with poor over-the-air television
reception. In these early systems, a large antenna was placed on top of a nearby hill and signal
was then piped to the subscribers' houses
A wide area network, or WAN, spans a large geographical area, often a country or continent. It
contains a collection of machines intended for running user (i.e., application) programs. We will
follow traditional usage and call these machines hosts. The hosts are connected by a
communication subnet, or just subnet for short. The hosts are owned by the customers (e.g.,
people's personal computers), whereas the communication subnet is typically owned and
operated by a telephone company or Internet service provider. The job of the subnet is to carry
messages from host to host, just as the telephone system carries words from speaker to listener.
Separation of the pure communication aspects of the network (the subnet) from the application
aspects (the hosts), greatly simplifies the complete network design.
Wireless Networks Digital wireless communication is not a new idea. As early as 1901, the
Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi demonstrated a ship-to-shore wireless telegraph, using
Morse Code (dots and dashes are binary, after all). Modern digital wireless systems have better
performance, but the basic idea is the same. To a first approximation, wireless networks can be
divided into three main categories:
1. System interconnection.
2. Wireless LANs.
3. Wireless WANs.

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System interconnection is all about interconnecting the components of a computer using short-
range radio. Almost every computer has a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and printer connected to
the main unit by cables.
The next step up in wireless networking are the wireless LANs. These are systems in which
every computer has a radio modem and antenna with which it can communicate with other
systems
The third kind of wireless network is used in wide area systems. The radio network used for
cellular telephones is an example of a low-bandwidth wireless system.
Home Networks Home networking is on the horizon. The fundamental idea is that in the future
most homes will be set up for networking. Every device in the home will be capable of
communicating with every other device, and all of them will be accessible over the Internet. This
is one of those visionary concepts that nobody asked for (like TV remote controls or mobile
phones), but once they arrived nobody can imagine how they lived without them. Many devices
are capable of being networked. Some of the more obvious categories (with examples) are as
follows:
1. Computers (desktop PC, notebook PC, PDA, shared peripherals).
2. Entertainment (TV, DVD, VCR, camcorder, camera, stereo, MP3).
3. Telecommunications (telephone, mobile telephone, intercom, fax).
4. Appliances (microwave, refrigerator, clock, furnace, airco, lights).
5. Telemetry (utility meter, smoke/burglar alarm, thermostat, babycam).
Network Software
The first computer networks were designed with the hardware as the main concern and the
software as an afterthought. This strategy no longer works. Network software is now highly
structured.
Protocol Hierarchies
To reduce their design complexity, most networks are organized as a stack of layers or
levels, each one built upon the one below it.
The number of layers, the name of each layer, the contents of each layer, and the function
of each layer differ from network to network.

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 The purpose of each layer is to offer certain services to the higher layers, shielding those
layers from the details of how the offered services are actually implemented.
In a sense, each layer is a kind of virtual machine, offering certain services to the layer
above it.
This concept is actually a familiar one and used throughout computer science, where it is
variously known as information hiding, abstract data types, data encapsulation, and object-
oriented programming.
The fundamental idea is that a particular piece of software (or hardware) provides a service
to its users but keeps the details of its internal state and algorithms hidden from them.
Layer n on one machine carries on a conversation with layer n on another machine.
The rules and conventions used in this conversation are collectively known as the layer n
protocol.
Basically, a protocol is an agreement between the communicating parties on how
communication is to proceed.

In reality, no data are directly transferred from layer n on one machine to layer n on
another machine. Instead, each layer passes data and control information to the layer
immediately below it, until the lowest layer is reached.
Between each pair of adjacent layers is an interface.
The interface defines which primitive operations and services the lower layer makes
available to the upper one.

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 When network designers decide how many layers to include in a network and what each
one should do, one of the most important considerations is defining clean interfaces between the
layers.
Design Issues for the Layers Some of the key design issues that occur in computer
networks are present in several layers.
The protocol must also determine how many logical channels the 31 connection
corresponds to and what their priorities are. Many networks provide at least two logical channels
per connection, one for normal data and one for urgent data.
Error control is an important issue because physical communication circuits are not perfect.
Many error-detecting and error-correcting codes are known, but both ends of the connection
must agree on which one is being used.
In addition, the receiver must have some way of telling the sender which messages have
been correctly received and which have not.
Not all communication channels preserve the order of messages sent on them.
To deal with a possible loss of sequencing, the protocol must make explicit provision for
the receiver to allow the pieces to be reassembled properly.
An obvious solution is to number the pieces, but this solution still leaves open the question
of what should be done with pieces that arrive out of order.
An issue that occurs at every level is how to keep a fast sender from swamping a slow
receiver with data.
Some of them involve some kind of feedback from the receiver to the sender, either
directly or indirectly, about the receiver's current situation.
Others limit the sender to an agreed-on transmission rate. This subject is called flow
control.
Another problem that must be solved at several levels is the inability of all processes to
accept arbitrarily long messages. This property leads to mechanisms for disassembling,
transmitting, and then reassembling messages.
Connection-Oriented and Connectionless Services Layers can offer two different types of
service to the layers above them: connection-oriented and connectionless.

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In some cases when a connection is established, the sender, receiver, and subnet conduct a
negotiation about parameters to be used, such as maximum message size, quality of service
required, and other issues.
connectionless service is modeled after the postal system. Each message (letter) carries the full
destination address, and each one is routed through the system independent of all the others.
Normally, when two messages are sent to the same destination, the first one sent will be the first
one to arrive.
Service Primitives A service is formally specified by a set of primitives (operations) available to
a user process to access the service. These primitives tell the service to perform some action or
report on an action taken by a peer entity.
If the protocol stack is located in the operating system, as it often is, the primitives are normally
system calls. These calls cause a trap to kernel mode, which then turns control of the machine
over to the operating system to send the necessary packets.
The set of primitives available depends on the nature of the service being provided. The
primitives for connection-oriented service are different from those of connectionless service.
Primitive Meaning
LISTEN Block waiting for an incoming connection
CONNECT Establishing a connection with a waiting peer
RECEIVE Block waiting for an incoming message
SEND Send a message to the peer
DISCONNECT Terminate a connection

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The OSI Reference Model
o OSI stands for Open System Interconnection is a reference model that describes how
information from a software application in one computer moves through a physical
medium to the software application in another computer.
o OSI consists of seven layers, and each layer performs a particular network function.
o OSI model was developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in
1984, and it is now considered as an architectural model for the inter-computer
communications.
o OSI model divides the whole task into seven smaller and manageable tasks. Each layer is
assigned a particular task.
o Each layer is self-contained, so that task assigned to each layer can be performed
independently.

Characteristics of OSI Model:

o The OSI model is divided into two layers: upper layers and lower layers.
o The upper layer of the OSI model mainly deals with the application related issues, and
they are implemented only in the software. The application layer is closest to the end
user. Both the end user and the application layer interact with the software applications.
An upper layer refers to the layer just above another layer.
o The lower layer of the OSI model deals with the data transport issues. The data link layer
and the physical layer are implemented in hardware and software. The physical layer is

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 the lowest layer of the OSI model and is closest to the physical medium. The physical
layer is mainly responsible for placing the information on the physical medium.

Functions of the OSI Layers

There are the seven OSI layers. Each layer has different functions. A list of seven layers are
given below:

1. Physical Layer
2. Data-Link Layer
3. Network Layer
4. Transport Layer
5. Session Layer
6. Presentation Layer
7. Application Layer

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 o The main functionality of the physical layer is to transmit the individual bits from one
node to another node.
o It is the lowest layer of the OSI model.
o It establishes, maintains and deactivates the physical connection.
o It specifies the mechanical, electrical and procedural network interface specifications.

Functions of a Physical layer:

o Line Configuration: It defines the way how two or more devices can be connected
physically.
o Data Transmission: It defines the transmission mode whether it is simplex, half-duplex
or full-duplex mode between the two devices on the network.
o Topology: It defines the way how network devices are arranged.
o Signals: It determines the type of the signal used for transmitting the information.

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Data-Link Layer

o This layer is responsible for the error-free transfer of data frames.

o It defines the format of the data on the network.
o It provides a reliable and efficient communication between two or more devices.
o It is mainly responsible for the unique identification of each device that resides on a local
network.
o It contains two sub-layers:
o Logical Link Control Layer
o It is responsible for transferring the packets to the Network layer of the
receiver that is receiving.
o It identifies the address of the network layer protocol from the header.
o It also provides flow control.
o Media Access Control Layer
o A Media access control layer is a link between the Logical Link Control
layer and the network's physical layer.
o It is used for transferring the packets over the network.

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Functions of the Data-link layer
o Framing: The data link layer translates the physical's raw bit stream into packets known
as Frames. The Data link layer adds the header and trailer to the frame. The header which
is added to the frame contains the hardware destination and source address.

o Physical Addressing: The Data link layer adds a header to the frame that contains a
destination address. The frame is transmitted to the destination address mentioned in the
header.
o Flow Control: Flow control is the main functionality of the Data-link layer. It is the
technique through which the constant data rate is maintained on both the sides so that no
data get corrupted. It ensures that the transmitting station such as a server with higher
processing speed does not exceed the receiving station, with lower processing speed.
o Error Control: Error control is achieved by adding a calculated value CRC (Cyclic
Redundancy Check) that is placed to the Data link layer's trailer which is added to the
message frame before it is sent to the physical layer. If any error seems to occurr, then the
receiver sends the acknowledgment for the retransmission of the corrupted frames.
o Access Control: When two or more devices are connected to the same communication
channel, then the data link layer protocols are used to determine which device has control
over the link at a given time.

Network Layer

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 o It is a layer 3 that manages device addressing, tracks the location of devices on the
network.
o It determines the best path to move data from source to the destination based on the
network conditions, the priority of service, and other factors.
o The Data link layer is responsible for routing and forwarding the packets.
o Routers are the layer 3 devices, they are specified in this layer and used to provide the
routing services within an internetwork.
o The protocols used to route the network traffic are known as Network layer protocols.
Examples of protocols are IP and Ipv6.

Functions of Network Layer:

o Internetworking: An internetworking is the main responsibility of the network layer. It
provides a logical connection between different devices.
o Addressing: A Network layer adds the source and destination address to the header of
the frame. Addressing is used to identify the device on the internet.
o Routing: Routing is the major component of the network layer, and it determines the best
optimal path out of the multiple paths from source to the destination.
o Packetizing: A Network Layer receives the packets from the upper layer and converts
them into packets. This process is known as Packetizing. It is achieved by internet
protocol (IP).

Transport Layer

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 o The Transport layer is a Layer 4 ensures that messages are transmitted in the order in
which they are sent and there is no duplication of data.
o The main responsibility of the transport layer is to transfer the data completely.
o It receives the data from the upper layer and converts them into smaller units known as
segments.
o This layer can be termed as an end-to-end layer as it provides a point-to-point connection
between source and destination to deliver the data reliably.

The two protocols used in this layer are:

o Transmission Control Protocol

o It is a standard protocol that allows the systems to communicate over the internet.
o It establishes and maintains a connection between hosts.
o When data is sent over the TCP connection, then the TCP protocol divides the
data into smaller units known as segments. Each segment travels over the internet
using multiple routes, and they arrive in different orders at the destination. The
transmission control protocol reorders the packets in the correct order at the
receiving end.
o User Datagram Protocol
o User Datagram Protocol is a transport layer protocol.
o It is an unreliable transport protocol as in this case receiver does not send any
acknowledgment when the packet is received, the sender does not wait for any
acknowledgment. Therefore, this makes a protocol unreliable.

Functions of Transport Layer:

o Service-point addressing: Computers run several programs simultaneously due to this
reason, the transmission of data from source to the destination not only from one
computer to another computer but also from one process to another process. The transport
layer adds the header that contains the address known as a service-point address or port
address. The responsibility of the network layer is to transmit the data from one computer
to another computer and the responsibility of the transport layer is to transmit the
message to the correct process.

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 o Segmentation and reassembly: When the transport layer receives the message from the
upper layer, it divides the message into multiple segments, and each segment is assigned
with a sequence number that uniquely identifies each segment. When the message has
arrived at the destination, then the transport layer reassembles the message based on their
sequence numbers.
o Connection control: Transport layer provides two services Connection-oriented service
and connectionless service. A connectionless service treats each segment as an individual
packet, and they all travel in different routes to reach the destination. A connection-
oriented service makes a connection with the transport layer at the destination machine
before delivering the packets. In connection-oriented service, all the packets travel in the
single route.
o Flow control: The transport layer also responsible for flow control but it is performed
end-to-end rather than across a single link.
o Error control: The transport layer is also responsible for Error control. Error control is
performed end-to-end rather than across the single link. The sender transport layer
ensures that message reach at the destination without any error.

Session Layer

o It is a layer 3 in the OSI model.

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 o The Session layer is used to establish, maintain and synchronizes the interaction between
communicating devices.

Functions of Session layer:

o Dialog control: Session layer acts as a dialog controller that creates a dialog between two
processes or we can say that it allows the communication between two processes which
can be either half-duplex or full-duplex.
o Synchronization: Session layer adds some checkpoints when transmitting the data in a
sequence. If some error occurs in the middle of the transmission of data, then the
transmission will take place again from the checkpoint. This process is known as
Synchronization and recovery.

Presentation Layer

o A Presentation layer is mainly concerned with the syntax and semantics of the
information exchanged between the two systems.
o It acts as a data translator for a network.
o This layer is a part of the operating system that converts the data from one presentation
format to another format.
o The Presentation layer is also known as the syntax layer.

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Functions of Presentation layer:
o Translation: The processes in two systems exchange the information in the form of
character strings, numbers and so on. Different computers use different encoding
methods, the presentation layer handles the interoperability between the different
encoding methods. It converts the data from sender-dependent format into a common
format and changes the common format into receiver-dependent format at the receiving
end.
o Encryption: Encryption is needed to maintain privacy. Encryption is a process of
converting the sender-transmitted information into another form and sends the resulting
message over the network.
o Compression: Data compression is a process of compressing the data, i.e., it reduces the
number of bits to be transmitted. Data compression is very important in multimedia such
as text, audio, video.

Application Layer

o An application layer serves as a window for users and application processes to access
network service.
o It handles issues such as network transparency, resource allocation, etc.
o An application layer is not an application, but it performs the application layer functions.

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 o This layer provides the network services to the end-users.

Functions of Application layer:

o File transfer, access, and management (FTAM): An application layer allows a user to
access the files in a remote computer, to retrieve the files from a computer and to manage
the files in a remote computer.
o Mail services: An application layer provides the facility for email forwarding and
storage.
o Directory services: An application provides the distributed database sources and is used
to provide that global information about various objects.

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TCP/IP model

o The TCP/IP model was developed prior to the OSI model.

o The TCP/IP model is not exactly similar to the OSI model.
o The TCP/IP model consists of five layers: the application layer, transport layer, network
layer, data link layer and physical layer.
o The first four layers provide physical standards, network interface, internetworking, and
transport functions that correspond to the first four layers of the OSI model and these four
layers are represented in TCP/IP model by a single layer called the application layer.
o TCP/IP is a hierarchical protocol made up of interactive modules, and each of them
provides specific functionality.

Here, hierarchical means that each upper-layer protocol is supported by two or more lower-level
protocols.

Functions of TCP/IP layers:

Network Access Layer

o A network layer is the lowest layer of the TCP/IP model.

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 o A network layer is the combination of the Physical layer and Data Link layer defined in
the OSI reference model.
o It defines how the data should be sent physically through the network.
o This layer is mainly responsible for the transmission of the data between two devices on
the same network.
o The functions carried out by this layer are encapsulating the IP datagram into frames
transmitted by the network and mapping of IP addresses into physical addresses.
o The protocols used by this layer are ethernet, token ring, FDDI, X.25, frame relay.

Internet Layer
o An internet layer is the second layer of the TCP/IP model.
o An internet layer is also known as the network layer.
o The main responsibility of the internet layer is to send the packets from any network, and
they arrive at the destination irrespective of the route they take.

Following are the protocols used in this layer are:

IP Protocol: IP protocol is used in this layer, and it is the most significant part of the entire
TCP/IP suite.

Following are the responsibilities of this protocol:

o IP Addressing: This protocol implements logical host addresses known as IP addresses.

The IP addresses are used by the internet and higher layers to identify the device and to
provide internetwork routing.
o Host-to-host communication: It determines the path through which the data is to be
transmitted.
o Data Encapsulation and Formatting: An IP protocol accepts the data from the transport
layer protocol. An IP protocol ensures that the data is sent and received securely, it
encapsulates the data into message known as IP datagram.
o Fragmentation and Reassembly: The limit imposed on the size of the IP datagram by
data link layer protocol is known as Maximum Transmission unit (MTU). If the size of IP
datagram is greater than the MTU unit, then the IP protocol splits the datagram into
smaller units so that they can travel over the local network. Fragmentation can be done by

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 the sender or intermediate router. At the receiver side, all the fragments are reassembled
to form an original message.
o Routing: When IP datagram is sent over the same local network such as LAN, MAN,
WAN, it is known as direct delivery. When source and destination are on the distant
network, then the IP datagram is sent indirectly. This can be accomplished by routing the
IP datagram through various devices such as routers.

ARP Protocol

o ARP stands for Address Resolution Protocol.

o ARP is a network layer protocol which is used to find the physical address from the IP
address.
o The two terms are mainly associated with the ARP Protocol:
o ARP request: When a sender wants to know the physical address of the device, it
broadcasts the ARP request to the network.
o ARP reply: Every device attached to the network will accept the ARP request
and process the request, but only recipient recognize the IP address and sends
back its physical address in the form of ARP reply. The recipient adds the
physical address both to its cache memory and to the datagram header

ICMP Protocol

o ICMP stands for Internet Control Message Protocol.

o It is a mechanism used by the hosts or routers to send notifications regarding datagram
problems back to the sender.
o A datagram travels from router-to-router until it reaches its destination. If a router is
unable to route the data because of some unusual conditions such as disabled links, a
device is on fire or network congestion, then the ICMP protocol is used to inform the
sender that the datagram is undeliverable.
o An ICMP protocol mainly uses two terms:
o ICMP Test: ICMP Test is used to test whether the destination is reachable or not.
o ICMP Reply: ICMP Reply is used to check whether the destination device is
responding or not.

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 o The core responsibility of the ICMP protocol is to report the problems, not correct them.
The responsibility of the correction lies with the sender.
o ICMP can send the messages only to the source, but not to the intermediate routers
because the IP datagram carries the addresses of the source and destination but not of the
router that it is passed to.

Transport Layer

The transport layer is responsible for the reliability, flow control, and correction of data which is
being sent over the network.

The two protocols used in the transport layer are User Datagram protocol and Transmission
control protocol.

o User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

o It provides connectionless service and end-to-end delivery of transmission.
o It is an unreliable protocol as it discovers the errors but not specify the error.
o User Datagram Protocol discovers the error, and ICMP protocol reports the error
to the sender that user datagram has been damaged.
o UDP consists of the following fields:
Source port address: The source port address is the address of the application
program that has created the message.
Destination port address: The destination port address is the address of the
application program that receives the message.
Total length: It defines the total number of bytes of the user datagram in bytes.
Checksum: The checksum is a 16-bit field used in error detection.
o UDP does not specify which packet is lost. UDP contains only checksum; it does
not contain any ID of a data segment.

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 o Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
o It provides a full transport layer services to applications.
o It creates a virtual circuit between the sender and receiver, and it is active for the
duration of the transmission.
o TCP is a reliable protocol as it detects the error and retransmits the damaged
frames. Therefore, it ensures all the segments must be received and acknowledged
before the transmission is considered to be completed and a virtual circuit is
discarded.
o At the sending end, TCP divides the whole message into smaller units known as
segment, and each segment contains a sequence number which is required for
reordering the frames to form an original message.
o At the receiving end, TCP collects all the segments and reorders them based on
sequence numbers.

Application Layer
o An application layer is the topmost layer in the TCP/IP model.
o It is responsible for handling high-level protocols, issues of representation.
o This layer allows the user to interact with the application.
o When one application layer protocol wants to communicate with another application
layer, it forwards its data to the transport layer.

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 o There is an ambiguity occurs in the application layer. Every application cannot be placed
inside the application layer except those who interact with the communication system.
For example: text editor cannot be considered in application layer while web browser
using HTTP protocol to interact with the network where HTTP protocol is an
application layer protocol.

Following are the main protocols used in the application layer:

o HTTP: HTTP stands for Hypertext transfer protocol. This protocol allows us to access
the data over the world wide web. It transfers the data in the form of plain text, audio,
video. It is known as a Hypertext transfer protocol as it has the efficiency to use in a
hypertext environment where there are rapid jumps from one document to another.
o SNMP: SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol. It is a framework used
for managing the devices on the internet by using the TCP/IP protocol suite.
o SMTP: SMTP stands for Simple mail transfer protocol. The TCP/IP protocol that
supports the e-mail is known as a Simple mail transfer protocol. This protocol is used to
send the data to another e-mail address.
o DNS: DNS stands for Domain Name System. An IP address is used to identify the
connection of a host to the internet uniquely. But, people prefer to use the names instead
of addresses. Therefore, the system that maps the name to the address is known as
Domain Name System.
o TELNET: It is an abbreviation for Terminal Network. It establishes the connection
between the local computer and remote computer in such a way that the local terminal
appears to be a terminal at the remote system.
o FTP: FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP is a standard internet protocol used for
transmitting the files from one computer to another computer.

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Example Networks

Computer Networks have different goals, scales, and technologies.

The Internet

The Internet is not a network at all, but a vast collection of different networks that use certain
common protocols and provide certain common services. It is an unusual system in that it was
not planned by anyone and is not controlled by anyone.

The ARPANET

The story begins in the late 1950s. At the height of the Cold War, the DoD wanted a command-
and-control network that could survive a nuclear war. At that time, all military communications
used the public telephone network, which was considered vulnerable.

The reason for this belief can be gleaned from Fig. 1-25(a). Here the 45 black dots represent
telephone switching offices, each of which was connected to thousands of telephones. These
switching offices were, in turn, connected to higher-level switching offices (toll offices), to form
a national hierarchy with only a small amount of redundancy. The vulnerability of the system
was that the destruction of a few key toll offices could fragment the system into many isolated
islands.

Around 1960, the DoD awarded a contract to the RAND Corporation to find a solution. One of
its employees, Paul Baran, came up with the highly distributed and fault-tolerant design . Since
the paths between any two switching offices were now much longer than analog signals could
travel without distortion, Baran proposed using digital packet-switching technology throughout
the system. Baran wrote several reports for the DoD describing his ideas in detail. Officials at the
Pentagon liked the concept and asked AT&T, then the U.S. national telephone monopoly, to
build a prototype. AT&T dismissed Baran's ideas out of hand. The biggest and richest
corporation in the world was not about to allow some young whippersnapper tell it how to build
a telephone system. They said Baran's network could not be built and the idea was killed.

Several years went by and still the DoD did not have a better command-and-control system. To
understand what happened next, we have to go back to October 1957, when the Soviet Union
beat the U.S. into space with the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik. When President

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Eisenhower tried to find out who was asleep at the switch, he was appalled to find the Army,
Navy, and Air Force squabbling over the Pentagon's research budget. His immediate response
was to create a single defense research organization, ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects
Agency. ARPA had no scientists or laboratories; in fact, it had nothing more than an office and a
small (by Pentagon standards) budget. It did its work by issuing grants and contracts to
universities and companies whose ideas looked promising to it.

NSFNET By the late 1970s, NSF (the U.S. National Science Foundation) saw the enormous
impact the ARPANET was having on university research, allowing scientists across the country
to share data and collaborate on research projects. However, to get on the ARPANET, a
university had to have a research contract with the DoD, which many did not have. NSF's
response was to design a successor to the ARPANET that would be open to all university
research groups. To have something concrete to start with, NSF decided to build a backbone
network 48 to connect its six supercomputer centers, in San Diego, Boulder, Champaign,
Pittsburgh, Ithaca, and Princeton. Each supercomputer was given a little brother, consisting of an
LSI-11 microcomputer called a fuzzball. The fuzzballs were connected with 56-kbps leased
lines and formed the subnet, the same hardware technology as the ARPANET used. The software
technology was different however: the fuzzballs spoke TCP/IP right from the start, making it the
first TCP/IP WAN. NSF also funded some (eventually about 20) regional networks that
connected to the backbone to allow users at thousands of universities, research labs, libraries,
and museums to access any of the supercomputers and to communicate with one another. The
complete network, including the backbone and the regional networks, was called NSFNET. It
connected to the ARPANET through a link between an IMP and a fuzzball in the
CarnegieMellon machine room.

Internet Usage

The number of networks, machines, and users connected to the ARPANET grew rapidly after
TCP/IP became the only official protocol on January 1, 1983. When NSFNET and the
ARPANET were interconnected, the growth became exponential. Many regional networks joined
up, and connections were made to networks in Canada, Europe, and the Pacific.

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TCP/IP protocol stack, has an IP address, and can send IP packets to all the other machines on
the Internet. The mere ability to send and receive electronic mail is not enough, since e-mail is
gatewayed to many networks outside the Internet. However, the issue is clouded somewhat by
the fact that millions of personal computers can call up an Internet service provider using a
modem, be assigned a temporary IP address, and send IP packets to other Internet hosts. It makes
sense to regard such machines as being on the Internet for as long as they are connected to the
service provider's router.

four main applications:

1. E-mail. The ability to compose, send, and receive electronic mail has been around since the
early days of the ARPANET and is enormously popular. Many people get dozens of messages a
day and consider it their primary way of interacting with the outside world, far outdistancing the
telephone and snail mail. E-mail programs are available on virtually every kind of computer
these days.

2. News. Newsgroups are specialized forums in which users with a common interest can
exchange messages. Thousands of newsgroups exist, devoted to technical and nontechnical
topics, including computers, science, recreation, and politics. Each newsgroup has its own
etiquette, style, and customs, and woe betide anyone violating them.

3. Remote login. Using the telnet, rlogin, or ssh programs, users anywhere on the Internet can
log on to any other machine on which they have an account.

4. File transfer. Using the FTP program, users can copy files from one machine on the Internet
to another. Vast numbers of articles, databases, and other information are available this way.

Connection-Oriented Networks: X.25, Frame Relay, and ATM

X.25 and Frame Relay Our first example of a connection-oriented network is X.25, which was
the first public data network. It was deployed in the 1970s at a time when telephone service was
a monopoly everywhere and the telephone company in each country expected there to be one
data network per country—theirs. To use X.25, a computer first established a connection to the
remote computer, that is, placed a telephone call. This connection was given a connection
number to be used in data transfer packets (because multiple connections could be open at the

29
same time). Data packets were very simple, consisting of a 3-byte header and up to 128 bytes of
data. The header consisted of a 12-bit connection number, a packet sequence number, an
acknowledgement number, and a few miscellaneous bits. X.25 networks operated for about a
decade with mixed success. In the 1980s, the X.25 networks were largely replaced by a new kind
of network called frame relay. The essence of frame relay is that it is a connection-oriented
network with no error control and no flow control. Because it was connection-oriented, packets
were delivered in order (if they were delivered at all). The properties of in-order delivery, no
error control, and no flow control make frame relay akin to a wide area LAN. Its most important
application is interconnecting LANs at multiple company offices. Frame relay enjoyed a modest
success and is still in use in places today.

Asynchronous Transfer Mode Yet another, and far more important, connection-oriented
network is ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode). The reason for the somewhat strange name is
that in the telephone system, most transmission is synchronous (closely tied to a clock), and
ATM is not. ATM was designed in the early 1990s and launched amid truly incredible hype
(Ginsburg, 1996; Goralski, 1995; Ibe, 1997; Kim et al., 1994; and Stallings, 2000). ATM was
going to solve all the world's networking and telecommunications problems by merging voice,
data, cable television, telex, telegraph, carrier pigeon, tin cans connected by strings, tom-toms,
smoke signals, and everything else into a single integrated system that could do everything for
everyone. It did not happen. In large part, the problems were similar to those we described earlier
concerning OSI, that is, bad timing, technology, implementation, and politics. Having just beaten
back the telephone companies in round 1, many in the Internet community saw ATM as Internet
versus the Telcos: the Sequel. But it really was not, and this time around even diehard datagram
fanatics were aware that the Internet's quality of service left a lot to be desired. To make a long
story short, ATM was much more successful than OSI, and it is now widely used deep within the
telephone system, often for moving IP packets. Because it is now mostly used by carriers for
internal transport, users are often unaware of its existence, but it is definitely alive and well.

ATM and ATM Networks

ATM stands for Asynchronous Transfer Mode. It is a switching technique that uses time
division multiplexing (TDM) for data communications.
ATM networks are connection oriented networks for cell relay that supports voice, video and
data communications. It encodes data into small fixed - size cells so that they are suitable for
TDM and transmits them over a physical medium.
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The size of an ATM cell is 53 bytes: 5 byte header and 48 byte payload. There are two different
cell formats - user-network interface (UNI) and network-network interface (NNI). The below
image represents the Functional Reference Model of the Asynchronous Transfer Mode.

Benefits of ATM Networks are

It provides the dynamic bandwidth that is particularly suited for bursty traffic.
 Since all data are encoded into identical cells, data transmission is simple, uniform
and predictable.
 Uniform packet size ensures that mixed traffic is handled efficiently.
 Small sized header reduces packet overload, thus ensuring effective bandwidth
usage.
 ATM networks are scalable both in size and speed.
ATM reference model comprises of three layers
 Physical Layer − This layer corresponds to physical layer of OSI model. At this
layer, the cells are converted into bit streams and transmitted over the physical
medium. This layer has two sub layers: PMD sub layer (Physical Medium
Dependent) and TC (Transmission Convergence) sub layer.
 ATM Layer −This layer is comparable to data link layer of OSI model. It accepts
the 48 byte segments from the upper layer, adds a 5 byte header to each segment
and converts into 53 byte cells. This layer is responsible for routing of each cell,
traffic management, multiplexing and switching.
 ATM Adaptation Layer (AAL) −This layer corresponds to network layer of OSI
model. It provides facilities to the existing packet switched networks to connect to
ATM network and use its services. It accepts the data and converts them into fixed
sized segments. The transmissions can be of fixed or variable data rate. This layer

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 has two sub layers − Convergence sub layer and Segmentation and Reassembly
sub layer.
 ATM endpoints − It contains ATM network interface adaptor. Examples of
endpoints are workstations, routers, CODECs, LAN switches, etc.
 ATM switch −It transmits cells through the ATM networks. It accepts the
incoming cells from ATM endpoints (UNI) or another switch (NNI), updates cell
header and retransmits cell towards destination.

Ethernet

Both the Internet and ATM were designed for wide area networking. However, many
companies, universities, and other organizations have large numbers of computers that must be
connected. This need gave rise to the local area network. we will say a little bit about the most
popular LAN, Ethernet. The story starts out in pristine Hawaii in the early 1970s. In this case,
''pristine'' can be interpreted as ''not having a working telephone system.'' While not being
interrupted by the phone all day long makes life more pleasant for vacationers, it did not make
life more pleasant for researcher Norman Abramson and his colleagues at the University of
Hawaii who were trying to connect users on remote islands to the main computer in Honolulu.
Stringing their own cables under the Pacific Ocean was not in the cards, so they looked for a
different solution. The one they found was short-range radios. Each user terminal was equipped
with a small radio having two frequencies: upstream (to the central computer) and downstream
(from the central computer). When the user wanted to contact the computer, it just transmitted a
packet containing the data in the upstream channel. If no one else was transmitting at that instant,
the packet probably got through and was acknowledged on the downstream channel. If there was
contention for the upstream channel, the terminal noticed the lack of acknowledgement and tried
again. Since there was only one sender on the downstream channel (the central computer), there
were never collisions there. This system, called ALOHANET, worked fairly well under
conditions of low traffic but bogged down badly when the upstream traffic was heavy. About the
same time, a student named Bob Metcalfe got his bachelor's degree at M.I.T. and then moved up
the river to get his Ph.D. at Harvard. During his studies, he was exposed to Abramson's work. He
became so interested in it that after graduating from Harvard, he decided to spend the summer in
Hawaii working with Abramson before starting work at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research

32
Center). When he got to PARC, he saw that the researchers there had designed and built what
would later be called personal computers. But the machines were isolated. Using his knowledge
of Abramson's work, he, together with his colleague David Boggs, designed and implemented
the first local area network (Metcalfe and Boggs, 1976). They called the system Ethernet after
the luminiferous ether, through which electromagnetic radiation was once thought to propagate.
(When the 19th century British physicist James Clerk Maxwell discovered that electromagnetic
radiation could be described by a wave equation, scientists assumed that space must be filled 56
with some ethereal medium in which the radiation was propagating. Only after the famous
Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887 did physicists discover that electromagnetic radiation
could propagate in a vacuum.) The transmission medium here was not a vacuum, but a thick
coaxial cable (the ether) up to 2.5 km long (with repeaters every 500 meters). Up to 256
machines could be attached to the system via transceivers screwed onto the cable. A cable with
multiple machines attached to it in parallel is called a multidrop cable. The system ran at 2.94
Mbps. A sketch of its architecture is given in Fig. 1-34. Ethernet had a major improvement over
ALOHANET: before transmitting, a computer first listened to the cable to see if someone else
was already transmitting. If so, the computer held back until the current transmission finished.
Doing so avoided interfering with existing transmissions, giving a much higher efficiency.
ALOHANET did not work like this because it was impossible for a terminal on one island to
sense the transmission of a terminal on a distant island. With a single cable, this problem does
not exist.

The Xerox Ethernet was so successful that DEC, Intel, and Xerox drew up a standard in 1978 for
a 10-Mbps Ethernet, called the DIX standard. With two minor changes, the DIX standard
became the IEEE 802.3 standard in 1983.

Wireless LANs:

802.11 Almost as soon as notebook computers appeared, many people had a dream of walking
into an office and magically having their notebook computer be connected to the Internet.
Consequently, various groups began working on ways to accomplish this goal. The most
practical approach is to equip both the office and the notebook computers with short-range radio
transmitters and receivers to allow them to communicate. This work rapidly led to wireless
LANs being marketed by a variety of companies. The trouble was that no two of them were

33
compatible. This proliferation of standards meant that a computer equipped with a brand X radio
would not work in a room equipped with a brand Y base station. Finally, the industry decided
that a wireless LAN standard might be a good idea, so the IEEE committee that standardized the
wired LANs was given the task of drawing up a wireless LAN standard. The standard it came up
with was named 802.11. A common slang name for it is WiFi. It is an important standard and
deserves respect, so we will call it by its proper name, 802.11. The proposed standard had to
work in two modes: 1. In the presence of a base station. 2. In the absence of a base station. In the
former case, all communication was to go through the base station, called an access point in
802.11 terminology. In the latter case, the computers would just send to one another directly.
This mode is now sometimes called ad hoc networking. A typical example is two or more people
sitting down together in a room not equipped with a wireless LAN and having their computers
just communicate directly.

The first decision was the easiest: what to call it. All the other LAN standards had numbers like
802.1, 802.2, 802.3, up to 802.10, so the wireless LAN standard was dubbed 802.11. The rest
was harder.

The second problem that had to be solved is that a radio signal can be reflected off solid objects,
so it may be received multiple times (along multiple paths). This interference results in what is
called multipath fading.

The third problem is that a great deal of software is not aware of mobility. For example, many
word processors have a list of printers that users can choose from to print a file. When the
computer on which the word processor runs is taken into a new environment, the built-in list of
printers becomes invalid. The fourth problem is that if a notebook computer is moved away from
the ceiling-mounted base station it is using and into the range of a different base station, some
way of handing it off is needed. Although this problem occurs with cellular telephones, it does
not occur with Ethernet and needed to be solved.

Guided Media

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It is defined as the physical medium through which the signals are transmitted. It is also
known as Bounded media.

Types Of Guided media:

Twisted pair:
Twisted pair is a physical media made up of a pair of cables twisted with each other. A
twisted pair cable is cheap as compared to other transmission media. Installation of the
twisted pair cable is easy, and it is a lightweight cable. The frequency range for twisted
pair cable is from 0 to 3.5KHz.

A twisted pair consists of two insulated copper wires arranged in a regular spiral pattern.

The degree of reduction in noise interference is determined by the number of turns per
foot. Increasing the number of turns per foot decreases noise interference.

Types of Twisted pair:

Unshielded Twisted Pair:

An unshielded twisted pair is widely used in telecommunication. Following are the
categories of the unshielded twisted pair cable:

o Category 1: Category 1 is used for telephone lines that have low-speed data.

35
 o Category 2: It can support upto 4Mbps.
o Category 3: It can support upto 16Mbps.
o Category 4: It can support upto 20Mbps. Therefore, it can be used for long-distance
communication.
o Category 5: It can support upto 200Mbps.

Advantages Of Unshielded Twisted Pair:

o It is cheap.
o Installation of the unshielded twisted pair is easy.
o It can be used for high-speed LAN.

Disadvantage:

o This cable can only be used for shorter distances because of attenuation.

Shielded Twisted Pair

A shielded twisted pair is a cable that contains the mesh surrounding the wire that
allows the higher transmission rate.

Characteristics Of Shielded Twisted Pair:

o The cost of the shielded twisted pair cable is not very high and not very low.
o An installation of STP is easy.
o It has higher capacity as compared to unshielded twisted pair cable.
o It has a higher attenuation.
o It is shielded that provides the higher data transmission rate.

Disadvantages

o It is more expensive as compared to UTP and coaxial cable.

o It has a higher attenuation rate.

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Coaxial Cable
o Coaxial cable is very commonly used transmission media, for example, TV wire is usually
a coaxial cable.
o The name of the cable is coaxial as it contains two conductors parallel to each other.
o It has a higher frequency as compared to Twisted pair cable.
o The inner conductor of the coaxial cable is made up of copper, and the outer conductor
is made up of copper mesh. The middle core is made up of non-conductive cover that
separates the inner conductor from the outer conductor.
o The middle core is responsible for the data transferring whereas the copper mesh
prevents from the EMI(Electromagnetic interference).

Coaxial cable is of two types:

1. Baseband transmission: It is defined as the process of transmitting a single signal at

high speed.
2. Broadband transmission: It is defined as the process of transmitting multiple signals
simultaneously.

Advantages Of Coaxial cable:

o The data can be transmitted at high speed.

o It has better shielding as compared to twisted pair cable.
o It provides higher bandwidth.

Disadvantages Of Coaxial cable:

o It is more expensive as compared to twisted pair cable.

o If any fault occurs in the cable causes the failure in the entire network.

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Fibre Optic
o Fibre optic cable is a cable that uses electrical signals for communication.
o Fibre optic is a cable that holds the optical fibres coated in plastic that are used to send
the data by pulses of light.
o The plastic coating protects the optical fibres from heat, cold, electromagnetic
interference from other types of wiring.
o Fibre optics provide faster data transmission than copper wires.

Diagrammatic representation of fibre optic cable:

Basic elements of Fibre optic cable:

o Core: The optical fibre consists of a narrow strand of glass or plastic known as a

core. A core is a light transmission area of the fibre. The more the area of the
core, the more light will be transmitted into the fibre.
o Cladding: The concentric layer of glass is known as cladding. The main
functionality of the cladding is to provide the lower refractive index at the core
interface as to cause the reflection within the core so that the light waves are
transmitted through the fibre.
o Jacket: The protective coating consisting of plastic is known as a jacket. The main
purpose of a jacket is to preserve the fibre strength, absorb shock and extra fibre
protection.

Following are the advantages of fibre optic cable over copper:

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o Greater Bandwidth: The fibre optic cable provides more bandwidth as compared
copper. Therefore, the fibre optic carries more data as compared to copper cable.
o Faster speed: Fibre optic cable carries the data in the form of light. This allows
the fibre optic cable to carry the signals at a higher speed.
o Longer distances: The fibre optic cable carries the data at a longer distance as
compared to copper cable.
o Better reliability: The fibre optic cable is more reliable than the copper cable as
it is immune to any temperature changes while it can cause obstruct in the
connectivity of copper cable.
o Thinner and Sturdier: Fibre optic cable is thinner and lighter in weight so it can
withstand more pull pressure than copper cable.

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