Unit Lecture

NETWORK LAYER 1
No 3 No
Topic Switching, Packet Switching
Bloom’sKnowledge
Learning Outcome (LO) At the end of this lecture, students will be able to
Level
LO1
LO2
LO3
LO4
LO5

Lecture notes
Network Layer Services:
 The network layer in the TCP/IP protocol suite is responsible for the host-to- host delivery
of datagrams.
 It provides services to the transport layer and receives services from the data- link layer.
 The network layer translates the logical addresses into physical addresses
 It determines the route from the source to the destination and also manages the traffic
problems such as switching, routing and controls the congestion of data packets.
 The main role of the network layer is to move the packets from sending host to the receiving
host.
Services provided by network layer are
PACKETIZING
 The first duty of the network layer is definitely packetizing.
 This means encapsulating the payload (data received from upper layer) in a network-layer
packet at the source and decapsulating the payload from the network-layer packet at the
destination.
 The network layer is responsible for delivery of packets from a sender to a receiver without
changing or using the contents.

ROUTING AND FORWARDING

Routing
 The network layer is responsible for routing the packet from its source to the destination.
 The network layer is responsible for finding the best one among these possible routes.
 The network layer needs to have some specific strategies for defining the best route.
 Routing is the concept of applying strategies and running routing protocols to create the
decision-making tables for each router.
 These tables are called as routing tables.
 CS3591- COMPUTER NETWORKS
II YEAR/ IV SEM

Forwarding
 Forwarding can be defined as the action applied by each router when a packet arrives at one
of its interfaces.
 The decision-making table, a router normally uses for applying this action is called the
forwarding table.
 When a router receives a packet from one of its attached networks, it needs to forward the
packet to another attached network.

ERROR CONTROL
 The network layer in the Internet does not directly provide error control.
 It adds a checksum field to the datagram to control any corruption in the
header, but not in the whole datagram.
 This checksum prevents any changes or corruptions in the header of the datagram.
 The Internet uses an auxiliary protocol called ICMP, that provides some kind of error
control if the datagram is discarded or has some unknown information in the header.

FLOW CONTROL
 Flow control regulates the amount of data a source can send without overwhelming the
receiver.
 The network layer in the Internet, however, does not directly provide any flow control.
 The datagrams are sent by the sender when they are ready, without any attention to the
readiness of the receiver.
 Flow control is provided for most of the upper-layer protocols that use the services of the
network layer, so another level of flow control makes the network layer more complicated
and the whole system less efficient.

CONGESTION CONTROL
 Another issue in a network-layer protocol is congestion control.
 Congestion in the network layer is a situation in which too many datagrams are present in an
area of the Internet.
 Congestion may occur if the number of datagrams sent by source computers is beyond the
capacity of the network or routers.
 In this situation, some routers may drop some of the datagrams.
SECURITY
 Another issue related to communication at the network layer is security.
 To provide security for a connectionless network layer, we need to have another virtual level
that changes the connectionless service to a connection- oriented service. This virtual layer
is called as called IPSec (IP Security).
Switching:
 The technique of transferring the information from one computer network to another
network is known as switching.
 Switching in a computer network is achieved by using switches.
 A switch is a small hardware device which is used to join multiple computers together with
one local area network (LAN).

 Switches are devices capable of creating temporary connections between two or more

devices linked to the switch.

 Switches are used to forward the packets based on MAC addresses.

 A Switch is used to transfer the data only to the device that has been addressed. It
verifies the destination address to route the packet appropriately.
 It is operated in full duplex mode.
 It does not broadcast the message as it works with limited bandwidth.

Advantages of Switching
 Switch increases the bandwidth of the network.
 It reduces the workload on individual PCs as it sends the information to only that
device which has been addressed.
 It increases the overall performance of the network by reducing the traffic on the
network.
 CS3591- COMPUTER NETWORKS
II YEAR/ IV SEM
 There will be less frame collision as switch creates the collision domain for each
connection.
Disadvantages of Switching:
 A Switch is more expensive than network bridges.
 A Switch cannot determine the network connectivity issues easily.
 Proper designing and configuration of the switch are required to handle multicast packets.
Types of Switching Techniques

CIRCUIT SWITCHING
 Circuit switching is a switching technique that establishes a dedicated path between sender
and receiver.
 In the Circuit Switching Technique, once the connection is established then the dedicated
path will remain to exist until the connection is terminated.
 Circuit switching in a network operates in a similar way as the telephone works.
 A complete end-to-end path must exist before the communication takes place.
 In case of circuit switching technique, when any user wants to send the data, voice, video, a
request signal is sent to the receiver then the receiver sends back the acknowledgment to
ensure the availability of the dedicated path. After receiving the acknowledgment, dedicated
path transfers the data.
 Circuit switching is used in public telephone network. It is used for voice transmission.
 Fixed data can be transferred at a time in circuit switching technology.
Phases in Circuit Switching
Communication through circuit switching has 3 phases:
1. Connection Setup / Establishment - In this phase, a dedicated circuit is established from
the source to the destination through a number of intermediate switching centres. The sender
and receiver transmits communication signals to request and acknowledge establishment of
circuits.
 2. Data transfer - Once the circuit has been established, data and voice are transferred from
the source to the destination. The dedicated connection remains as long as the end parties
communicate.
3. Connection teardown / Termination - When data transfer is complete, the connection is
relinquished. The disconnection is initiated by any one of the user. Disconnection involves
removal of all intermediate links from the sender to the receiver.

PACKET SWITCHING
 The packet switching is a switching technique in which the message is sent in one go, but it
is divided into smaller pieces, and they are sent individually.
 The message splits into smaller pieces known as packets and packets are given a unique
number to identify their order at the receiving end.
 Every packet contains some information in its headers such as source address, destination
address and sequence number.
 Packets will travel across the network, taking the shortest path as possible.
 All the packets are reassembled at the receiving end in correct order.
 If any packet is missing or corrupted, then the message will be sent to resend the message.
 If the correct order of the packets is reached, then the acknowledgment message will be sent.
 CS3591- COMPUTER NETWORKS
II YEAR/ IV SEM
Advantages of Packet Switching:
 Cost-effective: In packet switching technique, switching devices do not require massive
secondary storage to store the packets, so cost is minimized to some extent. Therefore, we
can say that the packet switching technique is a cost- effective technique.
 Reliable: If any node is busy, then the packets can be rerouted. This ensures that the Packet
Switching technique provides reliable communication.
 Efficient: Packet Switching is an efficient technique. It does not require any established
path prior to the transmission, and many users can use the same communication channel
simultaneously, hence makes use of available bandwidth very efficiently.
Disadvantages of Packet Switching:
 Packet Switching technique cannot be implemented in those applications that require low
delay and high-quality services.
 The protocols used in a packet switching technique are very complex and requires high
implementation cost.
 If the network is overloaded or corrupted, then it requires retransmission of lost packets. It
can also lead to the loss of critical information if errors are nor recovered.
APPROACHES OF PACKET SWITCHING
There are two approaches to Packet Switching:
 Datagram Packet switching
 Virtual Circuit Switching
Datagram Packet switching
 It is a packet switching technology in which packet is known as a datagram, is considered as
an independent entity.
 Each packet contains the information about the destination and switch uses this information
to forward the packet to the correct destination.
 The packets are reassembled at the receiving end in correct order.
 In Datagram Packet Switching technique, the path is not fixed.
 Intermediate nodes take the routing decisions to forward the packets.
 Datagram Packet Switching is also known as connectionless switching.
 There are no setup or teardown phases.
  Each packet is treated the same by a switch regardless of its source or destination.

In this example, all four packets (or datagrams) belong to the same message, but may
travel different paths to reach their destination.

Routing Table
In this type of network, each switch (or packet switch) has a routing table which is based
on the destination address. The routing tables are dynamic and are updated periodically.
The destination addresses and the corresponding forwarding output ports are recorded in

the tables.

Delay in a datagram network:

 The packet travels through two switches.

 There are three transmission times (3T),three propagation delays (slopes 3t of the lines), and
two waiting times (w1 + w2).
 We ignore the processing time in each switch.
Total delay = 3T + 3t + w1 + w2
 CS3591- COMPUTER NETWORKS
II YEAR/ IV SEM
Assessment questions to the lecture

Bloom’s
Qn No Question Answer Knowledge
Level
Give questions pertaining to the content presented (MCQ, MSQ,
True/False, Fill in the blanks, matching)

Students have to prepare answers for the following questions at the end of the lecture

Marks CO Bloom’s
Qn
Question Knowledge
No
Level
1 Give Anna University questions pertaining to the content
presented
2
3
4
5
6

Reference Book

Author(s) Title of the book Page numbers