Data and Computer

Communications

Tenth Edition
by William Stallings

Data and Computer Communications, Tenth

Edition by William Stallings, (c) Pearson
Education - Prentice Hall, 2013
 CHAPTER 9

WAN Technology and Protocols

Switched Communications
Networks
Switching nodes - provide a switching facility that move data between
nodes

Stations – devices attached to the network

Nodes – switching devices that provide communication

Communications network – collection of nodes

Switched communication network – data entering the network from a

station are routed to the destination by being switched from node to node
 Circuit Switching
 Uses a dedicated path  Has three phases
between two stations
 Can be inefficient
Establish
 Channel capacity
dedicated for duration
of connection
 If no data, capacity is
wasted Transfer
 Set up (connection)
takes time
 Once connected,
Disconnect
transfer is transparent
Circuit-Switching Technology
 Driven by applications that handle voice traffic
 Key requirement is no transmission delay and no
variation in delay
 Efficient for analog transmission of voice signals
 Inefficient for digital transmission
 Transparent
 Once a circuit is established it appears as a

direct connection; no special logic is needed

Circuit-Switching Concepts

Network
Digital switch Control unit
interface
• Provides a • Functions • Establishes,
transparent and maintains,
signal path hardware and tears
• Must allow needed to down the
full-duplex connect connection
transmission digital
devices
 Blocking or Non-blocking
Blocking network Non-blocking network
 May be unable to connect  Permits all stations to
stations because all paths connect at once
are in use  Grants all possible
 Used on voice systems connection requests as
because it is expected for long as the called party is
phone calls to be of short free
duration and that only a  When using data
fraction of the phones will connections terminals can
be engaged at any one be continuously connected
time for long periods of time so
nonblocking configurations
are required
 Space Division Switching
 Originally developed for analog, space
division switching has been carried over
into the digital realm
 Signal paths are physically separate from
one another
 Path is dedicated solely to transfer signals
 Basic building block of switch is a metallic
crosspoint or semiconductor gate
 Time Division Switching
 Modern digital systems use intelligent
control of space & time division elements
 Use digital time division techniques to set
up and maintain virtual circuits
 Partition low speed bit stream into pieces
that share higher speed stream
 Individual pieces manipulated by control
logic to flow from input to output
 Packet Switching
 Circuit switching was designed for voice
 Packet switching was designed for data
 Transmitted in small packets
 Packets contain user data and control info
 User data may be part of a larger message
 Control information includes routing (addressing)
 Packets are received, stored briefly (buffered)
and passed on to the next node
 Advantages
 Line efficiency
 Single link shared by many packets over time
 Packets queued and transmitted as fast as possible
 Data rate conversion
 Stations connect to local node at own speed
 Nodes buffer data if required to equalize rates
 Packets accepted even when network is busy
 Priorities can be used
 Switching Techniques
 Stationbreaks long message into packets
 Packets sent one at a time to the network
 Packets can be handled in two ways:

Datagram Virtual circuit

• Each packet is treated • A preplanned route is
independently with no established before
reference to previous any packets are sent
packets
 Virtual Circuits vs. Datagram
 Virtual circuits
 Network can provide sequencing and error
control
 Packets are forwarded more quickly
 Less reliable
 Datagram
 No call setup phase
 More flexible
 More reliable
 External Network Interface
 ITU-T standard for interface between host
and packet switched network
 Almost universal on packet switched
networks and packet switching in ISDN
 Defines three layers

Physical Link Packet

Table 9.1

Comparison
of
Communication
Switching
Techniques

(Table can be found

on page 291 in
textbook)
Asynchronous Transfer Mode
(ATM)
 A switching and multiplexing technology that employs
small, fixed-length packets called cells
 A fixed-size packet ensures function could be carried
out efficiently, with little delay variation
 Small cell size supports delay-intolerant interactive
voice service with a small packetization delay
 Designed to provide the performance of a circuit-
switching network and the flexibility and efficiency of a
packet-switching network
 Standardization effort was to provide a powerful set of
tools for supporting a rich QoS capability and a powerful
traffic management capability
 ATM
 Commonly used by telecommunications
providers to implement wide area
networks
 Used by many DSL implementations
 Used as a backbone network technology
in numerous IP networks
 Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) has
reduced the role for ATM
 Virtual Channel Connection
(VCC)
 Logical connection in ATM
 Analogous to a virtual circuit
 Basic unit of switching in an ATM network
 Set up between two end users through the
network, and a variable-rate, full duplex
flow of fixed-size cells is exchanged over
the connection
 Also used for user-network exchange and
network-network exchange
 Virtual Path Advantages
Simplified network architecture

• Network transport functions can be separated into those related to an

individual logical connection and those related to a group of logical
connections

Increased network performance and reliability

• The network deals with fewer, aggregated entities

Reduced processing and short connection setup time

• By reserving capacity on a virtual path connection, new virtual channel

connections can be established by executing simple control functions at
the endpoints of the virtual path connection

Enhanced network services

• The virtual path is used internal to the network but is also visible to the
end user; the user may define closed user groups or closed networks of
virtual channel bundles
Virtual Channel Characteristics
 ITU-T Recommendation I.150 lists the following
characteristics of VCCs:
Quality of service (QoS)
• Specified by parameters such as cell loss ratio and cell delay variation

Switched and semipermanent VCCs

• A switched VCC is an on-demand connection which requires a call control signaling for setup and tearing down
• A semipermanent VCC is one that is of long duration and is set up by configuration or network management
action

Cell sequence integrity

• The sequence of transmitted cells within a VCC is preserved

Traffic parameter negotiation and usage monitoring

• Traffic parameters can be negotiated between a user and the network for each VCC
• The network monitors the input of cells to ensure that the negotiated parameters are not violated
 ITU-T Recommendation I.150 lists the following characteristics of VPCs:

Characteristics
Quality of service (QoS)

Virtual Path
Specified by parameters such as cell loss ratio and cell delay variation

Switched which
A switched VPC is an on-demand connection and semipermanent VPCs VPC is one that is of long duration
A semipermanent
requires a call control signaling for setup and tearing and is set up by configuration or network management
down action

Cell sequence integrity

The sequence of transmitted cells within a VPC is preserved

Traffic parameter negotiation and usage monitoring

Traffic parameters can be negotiated between a user The network monitors the input of cells to ensure that
and the network for each VPC the negotiated parameters are not violated

Virtual channel identifier restriction within a VPC

One or more virtual channel identifiers, or numbers, may not be available to the user of the VPC but may be
reserved for network use
 Control Signaling
VCCs VPCs
 Semipermanent VCCs may be used for  Can be established on a
user-to-user exchange semipermanent basis by prior
 No control signaling is required
agreement
 If there is no preestablished call control  No control signaling is required
signaling channel, then one must be set
up  VPC establishment/release may
 Meta-signaling channel be customer controlled
 The meta-signaling channel can be  The customer uses a signaling VCC
used to set up a VCC between the user to request the VPC from the network
and the network for call control signaling  VPC establishment/release may
 User-to-network signaling virtual channel
be network controlled
 The meta-signaling channel can also be  The network establishes a VPC for
used to set up a user-to-user signaling its own convenience
virtual channel  The path may be network-to-
 Such a channel must be set up within a
preestablished VPC network, user-to-network, or user-to-
user
 Table 9.2
Payload Type (PT) Field Coding

SDU = Service Data Unit

OAM = Operations, Administration, and Maintenance
 Summary
 Switched  Packet-switching
communications principles
networks  Switching technique
 Packet size
 Circuit-switching  External network
networks interface
 Circuit-switching  Comparison of circuit
concepts switching and packet
switching
 Space division
switching  Asynchronous transfer
 Time-division switching mode
 ATM logical connections
 Softswitch architecture  ATM cells