ITT400

Introduction To Data Communication

and Networking

Chapter 12
Connecting Devices, Bckbone
Network and Virtual LANs

Mazlan Osman, FSKM, UiTM (Terengganu) 2014

CONNECTING DEVICES
Connecting devices used to connect LANs or segment
one to another. It operates in different layer of the
internet model.
Connecting Devices

Passive Bridges Routers Gateways

Hub

Active Two-Layer Three-

Hub Switches Layer
Switches
Five categories of connecting devices

Connecting devices can be divided into five different categories

based on the layer in which they operate in a network.
Passive Hub
 Is a connector
 Connect wires coming from different branches
 In star-topology Ethernet LAN,
 Passive hub as a point where the signal coming from
different station collide
 Hub is a collision domain
 It is a part of media

 A central connecting device in a network that joins wires

from several stations in a star configuration.
 It does not provide any processing or regeneration of
signals.
 Contrast with active hub and intelligent hub
Repeater

 Operate in the physical layer

 Signal can traverse in network at a fixed
distance before attenuation ~ effect data
integrity
 Repeater used to regenerate the original bit
pattern ~before signal weak
 Can extend the physical length of a LAN
A repeater connecting two segments of a LAN
 Information : Repeater
A repeater connects segments of a LAN.
Only can connect within same LAN and does not support different protocol

A repeater forwards every frame;

it has no filtering capability.
Distance limitation ≈ 500m.
Divide cable into segments and install repeaters between segments

A repeater is a regenerator,
not an amplifier.
Amplifier ~ cannot discriminate between intended signal and noise
~ amplifies equally everything fed into it
Repeater ~ regenerate signal
~ when received weakened or corrupted signal, create copy, bit for bit,
at original
Function of a repeater
Active Hub

 Is a multi-port repeater
 Create connection between station in physical
star topology
 Can create multiple levels of hierarchy
The hierarchical remove the length limitation of
10base-T(100m)
A hierarchy of hubs
Passive Hub vs. Active Hub
 Passive Hubs
 These hubs are nothing more than point contacts for the wires
that make up the physical network.
 An example of this would be a punchdown block that is a
simple plastic, unpowered box used to plug network cables
into it.

 Active Hubs

 Active hubs are a little smarter than the passive hubs

 Also known as "concentrators" which are basically active
hubs, concentrating and strengthening a signal as it enters and
exits the hub.
Bridge

 Operates at:
physical ~ regenerate the signal it receive
data link ~ can check physical (MAC) address
consist in the frame

A bridge has a table used in

filtering decisions.

Filtering ~ check destination address of a frame and

decide whether the frame should be forwarded or
dropped
A bridge connecting two LANs
 Information: Bridge

A bridge does not change the physical

(MAC) addresses in a frame.
Transparent Bridges

 A bridge where station are completely

unaware of the bridge existence
 According IEEE 802.1d specification, a
system equipped with transparent bridge must
meet:
Frames must be forwarded from one to another
Forwarding is automatically made by learning frame
movement
Loops in the system must be prevented
A learning bridge and the process of learning
 Dynamic table is better coz it
maps address automatically
 The destination address for the
forwarding decision
 Sources address used for
adding entries to the table and
for updating
Loop problem in a learning bridge

Transparent bridges completely working smoothly if no redundancy bridges

Redundancy bridge make system reliable ~ failover (backup)
Redundancy can create loops in the system
Spanning Tree
 Is a graph in which there is no loop
 Frame forwarding thru one path only
 Prevent loop in the system
 Cannot change physical topology but can create
logical topology
 Refer figure, LAN and bridge as node; connecting
arcs shows connection LANs to a bridge and vice
versa
 To find the spanning tree, need to assign a cost
(metrics) to each arc
 Path with minimum hops
 Path with minimum delays
 Path with maximum bandwidth
A system of connected LANs and its graph
representation  3 steps to find spanning
tree
 Every bridge has a built-in
ID(SN-unique); broadcast
ID then know the smallest
ID. Smallest ID is root
 The algorithm find the
shortest path from root
bridge to other bridges or
LAN
 The combination path of
the shortest path create
shortest tree
 Based on spanning tree,
mark port are part a
spanning tree ~
forwarding port; port are
not part of spanning tree ~
blocking port
Finding the shortest paths and the spanning tree in a system of
bridges
Forwarding and blocking ports after using spanning tree
algorithm
Spanning Tree (cont.)
 Dynamic algorithm – sending special messages called
bridge protocol data unit (BPDU) to update spanning
tree
 Updated when there is a change such as failure, addition or
deletion pf bridges
 Source routing bridges
 Another way to prevent loop
 Include filtering, forwarding and blocking
 The frame contains source and destination address, and also
addresses of all visited bridges
 Source get bridges address through exchange of special
frames
 Design by IEEE to use in Token Ring LANs
Bridges connecting to different LAN
 Issues:
Frame format
Maximum data size
 Bridge will discard any too large frame for its system
Data rate
 The bridge must buffer the frame to compensate for this
difference
Bit order
 Different type of sending bits
Security
 Need to encrypt and decrypt
Multimedia support
Two Layer Switch
 Perform physical and data link layer
 Like bridge but provide many ports and allow better
performance
 Filtering decision based on the MAC address
 It can be more sophisticated
 Can have buffer to hold the frames for processing
 Cut-through switch designed to forward frame as
soon as check the MAC address in the header of the
frame
Router
 a device or, in some cases, software in a computer, that
determines the next network point to which a packet should
be forwarded toward its destination.
 The router is connected to at least two networks and decides
which way to send each information packet based on its
current understanding of the state of the networks.
 A router is located at any gateway (where one network meets
another), including each point-of-presence on the Internet.
 A router is often included as part of a network switch.
 A router may create or maintain a table of the available
routes and use this information along with distance and cost
algorithms to determine the best route for a given packet.
 Typically, a packet may travel through a number of
network points (nodes) with routers before arriving at its
destination.
 Routing is a function associated with the Network layer
(layer 3)
Routers connecting independent LANs and WANs
Three Layer Switch

 A layer-3 switch is a switch that can perform

routing functions.
Gateway
 A node on a network that serves as an entrance to another
network.
 In enterprises, the gateway is the computer that routes the traffic
from a workstation to the outside network that is serving the
Web pages.
 In homes, the gateway is the ISP that connects the user to the
internet.
 In enterprises, the gateway node often acts as a proxy server and
a firewall.
 The gateway is also associated with both a router, which use
headers and forwarding tables to determine where packets are
sent, and a switch, which provides the actual path for the packet
in and out of the gateway.
 A computer system located on earth that switches data
signals and voice signals between satellites and terrestrial
networks.
 An earlier term for router, though now obsolete in this
sense as router is commonly used.
BACKBONE NETWORKS
A backbone network allows several LANs to be
connected. In a backbone network, no station is directly
connected to the backbone; the stations are part of a
LAN, and the backbone connects the LANs.

Backbone Network

Bus Backbone Star Backbone Connecting

Remote LANs
Bus Backbone

In a bus backbone, the topology

of the backbone is a bus.
Bus backbone
 Star Backbone

In a star backbone, the topology of the

backbone is a star;
the backbone is just one switch.
Star backbone

 Also known as a collapsed or switched network

 Used as a distribution backbone inside a building
Connecting remote LANs with bridges

 Remote LAN is another common backbone network

application
 LANs can be connected using remote bridges
 ~connecting LAN and point to point network
Information : Connecting Remote LAN

A point-to-point link acts as a LAN in a

remote backbone connected by
remote bridges.
VIRTUAL LANs
Virtual local area network (VLAN) can be defined as a
local area network configured by software, not by
physical wiring.
Virtual LAN Subtopic

Communication
Membership Advantages
between
Switches

Configuration
IEEE Standard
A switch connecting three LANs
A switch using VLAN software
Two switches in a backbone using VLAN
software
 Information : V LAN

VLANs create broadcast domains.

 V LAN : Membership
 Different characteristic:
Port number
 Define port number belong to VLAN
MAC Address
 Define based on bit MAC address, e.g: 32 bit belong to
VLAN
IP Address
Multicast IP Address
 where a source device can send to a group of devices
 Multicast is useful in certain circumstances:more efficient
alternative to broadcasting
combination
 V LAN : Configuration
 Manual Configuration
Manually configured by administrator using
software
Migration from one LAN to another LAN done
manually
 Automatic Configuration
Station automatic connect and disconnect to VLAN
using criteria than has been defined
E.g.: using project number
 Semi-automatic Configuration
Whether manually configuration or automatically
configuration
 V LAN : Communication Between
 Three methods
Switches
 Table maintenance
 Updating entries in table when station broadcast frame and
record station membership
 Frame tagging
 Added extra header to a MAC frame to define the destination
VLAN
 The frame tag used by the receiving switches to determine the
VLANs to be receiving the broadcast message
 Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM)
 connection between switches divided into time-shared
 Use concept TDM
 V LAN : Standard

 IEEE standard ~ 802.1Q defines format of

tagging
 Also defines format to be used in multi-
switched backbone and enable using multi-
vendor equipment in VLAN
 V LAN : Advantages

 Cost and time reduction

 Creating virtual workgroup
 Security