Computer Networks

CSC420

Chapter 1
Introduction

1
Uses of Computer Networks

• Business Applications
• Home Applications
• Mobile Users
• Social Issues

2
Business Applications of
Networks (1/2)
 A network with two clients and one server.

3
Business Applications of
Networks (2/2)
 The client-server model involves requests
and replies.

4
 Home Network
Applications (1/2)

 Access to remote information

 Person-to-person communication
 Interactive entertainment
 Electronic commerce

5
Home Network
Applications (2/2)

In peer-to-peer system there are

no fixed clients and servers.
6
Mobile Network Users (1/3)
 Combinations of wireless networks and mobile
computing.

 2 important (but different) challenges:

 wireless: communication over wireless link
 mobility: handling the mobile user who changes point of
attachment to network

7
Relationship between mobile and wireless
Mobile Network Users (2/3)
Mobile is the ability to be on the move.
A mobile device is anything that can be used on the
move, ranging from laptops to mobile phones. As long as
location is not fixed, it is considered mobile.

Wireless refers to the transmission of voice and data over

radio waves.
It allows workers to communicate with enterprise data
without requiring a physical connection to the network.
Wireless devices include anything that uses a wireless
network to either send or receive data.
The wireless network itself can be accessed from
mobile workers, as well as in fixed locations. 8
Mobile Network Users (3/3)

Combinations of wireless networks and mobile computing:

9
Network Types -
Categories by Geographic Span (1/5)

 PAN (Personal Area Network)

– It is characterized to limited distance, usually limited
speed, and low volume. Common example is laptop or
PDA and a desktop PC or printer using Infrared or
Bluetooth technologies to communicate.

10
Network Types -
Categories by Geographic Span (2/5)

 LAN (Local Area Network)

– It can connect many computers in a relatively small
geographical area. Confined to office, building or, small
cluster of buildings. In most cases all computers on a LAN
use the same medium, topology and protocols.

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Network Types -
Categories by Geographic Span (3/5)

 MAN (Metropolitan Area Network)

– It is a network designed to be limited to a neighborhood
or city, it may be a single network or may be consists of
many interconnected LANs. MANs may be owned and
operate by private company or usually a public company.

12

A metropolitan area network based on cable TV

Network Types -
Categories by Geographic Span (4/5)

 WAN (Wide Area Network)

– WAN connects devices across a large distance that often
crosses the geographical boundaries of cities or states
(Large geographic region, an entire state,
or several states). WAN connections can use telephone
lines, radio waves, or any one of many other technologies.
WANs are usually owned and operated by public
companies.

13
Network Types -
Categories by Geographic Span (5/5)

 Global Area Network

– GAN provides connectivity between countries around the
globe. Internet is the most obvious example on GANs
where it connects a huge number of LANs, MANs, and
WANs into an interconnected network.

14
Network Types -
Wireless Categories (1/6)

 WPAN (Wireless Personal Area Network)

– It is used to convey information over short distances
among a private, intimate group of participant devices.
A connection made through a WPAN involves little or
no infrastructure or direct connectivity to the world
outside the link. This allows small, power-efficient,
inexpensive solutions to be implemented for a wide
range of devices. A widely used WPAN technology is
known as Bluetooth.

15
Network Types -
Wireless Categories (2/6)

 Bluetooth Networks
– Piconet:
 It is a small Bluetooth network that connects
mobile devices wirelessly over a short range
of 10m radius, using ultra-high frequency
(UHF) radio waves, to form a personal area
network (PAN).
 It can be formed by at most 8 stations, one of
which is the master node and the rest slave
nodes. The master node is the primary station
that manages the small network. The slave
stations are secondary stations that are
synchronized with the primary station.
16
Network Types -
Wireless Categories (3/6)

 Bluetooth Networks
– Scatternet:
 It is a chain of piconets created by allowing
one or more Bluetooth devices to each be a
slave in one piconet and act as the master for
another piconet simultaneously.
 It allows several devices to be networked
over an extended distance.

17
Network Types -
Wireless Categories (4/6)

 Bluetooth Networks

18
Network Types -
Wireless Categories (5/6)

 WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network)

– It is a group of collocated computers or other devices
(laptops, smart phones and printers) that form a
network based on radio transmissions rather than
wired connections. A Wi-Fi network is a type of WLAN.

19
Network Types -
Wireless Categories (6/6)

 WWAN (Wireless Wide Area Network)

– It is typically used to connect devices like laptops and
smart phones to the Internet over long distances, often
using cellular data networks.

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Types of Transmission
Technology (1/2)
– Broadcast networks
 It have a single communication channel that is
shared or used by all the machines on the
network. Short messages called packets sent
by any machine are received by all the others.

– Point-to-point networks
 It consists of many connections between
individual pairs of machines. To go from the
source to the destination a packet on these
types of network may have to go through
intermediate computers before they reach the
desired computer.
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 Types of Transmission
Technology (1/2)
Classification of interconnected processors by scale.

22
 Network topologies (1/18)

 Network topologies describe the methods in which all

the elements of a network are mapped.

 The topology term refers to both the physical and

logical layout of a network:
– Physical topology: This type of network is an actual
layout/scheme of the computer cables and other
network devices.
– Logical topology: Logical topology gives insight’s/ideas
about network’s physical design.

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Network topologies (2/18)

 Different types of Physical Topologies are:

24
 Network topologies (3/18)

 Point to Point (P2P) topology:

– It is the easiest of all the network topologies.
– In this method, the network consists of a direct link
between two computers.

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 Network topologies (4/18)

 Bus topology:
– It is a single cable which connects all the included
nodes.
– The main cable acts as a spine for the entire network.
– One of the computers in the network acts as the
computer server.
– When it has two endpoints, it is known as a linear bus
topology.

26
Linear bus topology is a type of network topology where each device connects
one after the other in a sequential chain.
 Network topologies (5/18)

 Bus topology:
– Advantages:
 Easy to implement
 Requires little cost
 Simple operation
 Good performance/price ratio
 Very high bandwidth (>10Mbs)
 Simplicity of extension
 Independence from the workstation (fault tolerance)

27
 Network topologies (6/18)

 Bus topology:
– Disadvantages:
 A cut cable can interrupt the network.
 Is extremely vulnerable since if one of the connections is
faulty, the entire network is affected.
 Does not prohibit 2 stations from transmitting at the same
time, the messages are then altered: there is collision
 Cable length and number of stations limited.
 Performance degrades with the addition of stations. Low
security of data passing through the network (all stations
connected to the bus can read all data transmitted on the
bus).
 A virus on the network can affect all stations.
 A termination must be used for the ends of the bus.
28
 Network topologies (7/18)

 Ring topology:
– Every device has exactly 2 neighboring devices for
communication purpose.
– Every computer is connected to another computer.
Here, the last node is combined with a first one.
– It uses token to pass the information from one
computer to another.
– In this topology, all the messages travel through a ring
in the same direction.

29
 Network topologies (8/18)

 Ring topology:

– Advantages:
 High transfer speed
 High efficiency at high flow rates

– Disadvantages:
 Expensive solution
 Weakened by the breakage of the loop
 Requires “emptying” the ring

30
 Network topologies (9/18)

 Star topology:
– All the computers connect with the help of a hub.
 It’s called a central node, and all other nodes are
connected using this central node.
– It’s most popular on LAN networks as they are
inexpensive and easy to install.

31
 Network topologies (10/18)

 Star topology:

– Advantages:
 Adapts well to the telephone network (PABX)
 Powerful dialogue between nodes
 The failure of a station does not imply that of the
network
– Disadvantages:
 Central node vulnerability
 Expensive wiring

32
 Network topologies (11/18)

 Tree / hierarchical topology:

– Tree topologies have a root node, and all other nodes
are connected which form a hierarchy.

33
 Network topologies (12/18)

 Hybrid topology:
– It combines two or more topologies.
– It is always produced when 2 different basic network
topologies are connected.

34
 Network topologies (13/18)

 Mesh topology:
– It has a unique network design in which each
computer on the network connects to every other.
– It is develops a P2P connection between all the
devices of the network.
– It offers a high level of redundancy, so even if one
network cable fails, still data has an alternative path to
reach its destination.

35
 Network topologies (14/18)

 Mesh topology:
– Types of Mesh Topology:
 Partial Mesh Topology: In this type of topology,
most of the devices are connected almost similarly
as full topology. The only difference is that few
devices are connected with just two or three
devices.

 Full Mesh Topology: In this topology, every nodes

or device are directly connected with each other.

36
 Network topologies (15/18)

 Mesh topology:

Partial Mesh Topology Full Mesh Topology

37
 Network topologies (16/18)

 Mesh topology:

– Advantages:
 Redundancy
 Emergency paths (back-up)

– Disadvantages:
 Complexity
 Risks of curls
 Expensive solution
 Degraded/Gradient operation
 Difficult distribution 38
Network topologies (17/18)

 Summary:

39
Network topologies (18/18)

 Summary:

40
 Wireless Networks (1/5)
Categories of wireless networks:

 System interconnection

 Wireless LANs

 Wireless WANs

41
 Wireless Networks (2/5)
Categories of wireless networks:
 System interconnection:
– It is all about interconnecting the components of a
computer using short-range radio (Bluetooth) to
connect various components like monitor, keyboard,
mouse, printer etc, without wires.

42
 Wireless Networks (3/5)
Categories of wireless networks:
 Wireless LANs:
– These are the systems in which every computer has a
radio modem and antenna with the help of these it can
communicate with other systems (IEEE 802.11).

43
 Wireless Networks (4/5)
Categories of wireless networks:
 Wireless WANs:
– The radio network used for cellular telephones is an
example of low-bandwidth wireless WAN.
– This system has already gone through 3 generations:
 The 1st was analog and used for voice only.
 The 2nd generation was digital and used for voice
only.
 The 3rd generation is digital and used for both voice
and data.

44
 Wireless Networks (5/5)
Categories of wireless networks:
 Wireless WANs:

(a) Individual mobile computers (b) A flying LAN

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Network Software

 Protocol Hierarchies
 Design Issues for the Layers
 Connection-Oriented & Connectionless
Services
 Service Primitives
 The Relationship of Services to Protocols

46
Network Software
Protocol Hierarchies (1/7)
Networks are complex,
with many “pieces”: Question:
– hosts is there any hope of
organizing structure of
– routers
network?
– links of various media
– applications
…. or at least our
– protocols discussion of networks?
– hardware, software

47
Network Software
Protocol Hierarchies (2/7)

Organization of air travel

ticket (purchase) ticket (complain)

baggage (check) baggage (claim)

gates (load) gates (unload)

runway takeoff runway landing

airplane routing airplane routing

airplane routing
48
 Network Software
Protocol Hierarchies (3/7)

Layering of airline functionality

ticket (purchase) ticket (complain) ticket

baggage (check) baggage (claim baggage

gates (load) gates (unload) gate

runway (takeoff) runway (land) takeoff/landing

airplane routing airplane routing airplane routing airplane routing airplane routing

departure intermediate air-traffic arrival

airport control centers airport

layers: each layer implements a service

– via its own internal-layer actions
– relying on services provided by layer below 49
 Network Software
Protocol Hierarchies (4/7)

Layers,
protocols,
and interfaces

50
Network Software
Protocol Hierarchies (5/7)

51
Network Software
Protocol Hierarchies (6/7)

Example information flow supporting virtual 52

communication in layer 5
 Network Software
Protocol Hierarchies (7/7)
message M application source
segment Ht M transport
datagram Hn Ht M network
frame Hl Hn Ht M link
physical
link
physical

switch

destination Hn Ht M network
M application Hl Hn Ht M link Hn Ht M
Ht M transport physical
Hn Ht M network router
Hl Hn Ht M link 53

physical
Network Software
Design Issues for the Layers (1/6)

 Reliability
 Addressing
 Error Control
 Flow Control
 Routing
 Resource Allocation
 Multiplexing
 Security
 Scalability
54
Network Software
Design Issues for the Layers (2/6)

 Reliability: Network channels and components may

be unreliable, resulting in loss of bits while data
transfer. So, an important design issue is to make
sure that the information transferred is not distorted.

 Addressing: At a particular time, innumerable

messages are being transferred between large
numbers of computers. So, an addressing system
should exist so that each layer can identify the
sender and receivers of each message.

55
Network Software
Design Issues for the Layers (3/6)

 Error Control: Unreliable channels introduce a

number of errors in the data streams that are
communicated. So, the layers need to agree upon
common error detection and error correction
methods so as to protect data packets while they are
transferred.

 Flow Control: If the rate at which data is produced

by the sender is higher than the rate at which data is
received by the receiver, there are chances of
overflowing the receiver. So, a proper flow control
mechanism needs to be implemented. 56
Network Software
Design Issues for the Layers (4/6)

 Routing: There may be multiple paths from the

source to the destination. Routing involves choosing
an optimal path among all possible paths, in terms
of cost and time. There are several routing
algorithms that are used in network systems.
 Resource Allocation: Computer networks provide
services in the form of network resources to the end
users. The main design issue is to allocate and
deallocate resources to processes. The
allocation/deallocation should occur so that minimal
interference among the hosts occurs and there is
optimal usage of the resources. 57
Network Software
Design Issues for the Layers (5/6)

 Multiplexing: It is not feasible to allocate a

dedicated path for each message while it is being
transferred from the source to the destination. So,
the data channel needs to be multiplexed, so as to
allocate a fraction of the bandwidth or time to each
host.
 Security: A major factor of data communication is
to defend it against threats like eavesdropping and
alteration of messages. So, there should be
adequate mechanisms to prevent unauthorized
access to data through authentication and
cryptography. 58
Network Software
Design Issues for the Layers (6/6)

 Scalability: Networks are continuously evolving.

The sizes are continually increasing leading to
congestion. Also, when new technologies are applied
to the added components, it may lead to
incompatibility issues. Hence, the design should be
done so that the networks are scalable and can
accommodate such additions and alterations.

59
Network Software
Connection-Oriented & Connectionless
Services (1/6)

 Connection-oriented service involves the creation

and termination of the connection for sending the
data between 2 or more devices.

 Connection-less service does not require

establishing any connection and termination
process for transferring the data over a network.

60
Network Software
Connection-Oriented & Connectionless
Services (2/6)

 Connection-oriented service:
– There is a sequence of operation to be followed by
the users of connection-oriented service.
 Connection is established.
 Information is sent.
 Connection is released.
– It is more reliable than connection-less service.
 We can send the message in connection oriented
service if there is an error at the receivers end.
Example of connection-oriented is TCP protocol.

61
Network Software
Connection-Oriented & Connectionless
Services (3/6)

 Connection-less service:
– It is similar to the postal services, as it carries the full
address where the message (letter) is to be carried.
Each message is routed independently from source
to destination.
– The order of message sent can be different from the
order received.

62
Network Software
Connection-Oriented & Connectionless
Services (4/6)
 Connection-less service:
– The data is transferred in one direction from source
to destination without checking that destination is
still there or not or if it prepared to accept the
message.
– Example of Connection-less service is UDP (User
Datagram Protocol) protocol.

63
Network Software
Connection-Oriented & Connectionless
Services (5/6)

 Connection-oriented vs Connection-less service:

– Connection-oriented protocol makes a connection
and checks whether message is received or not and
sends again if an error occurs, while connection-less
service protocol does not guarantees a message
delivery.
– Connection-oriented service is more reliable than
connection-less service.
– Connection oriented service interface is stream based
and connection-less is message based.

64
Network Software
Connection-Oriented & Connectionless
Services (6/6)

Six different types of service.

65
Network Software
Service Primitives (1/3)

 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.
– 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 connection-less service.

66
Network Software
Service Primitives (2/3)

5 service primitives for implementing a simple

connection-oriented service.

67
Network Software
Service Primitives (3/3)

Packets sent in a simple client-server interaction on a

connection-oriented network.

68
Network Software
Services to Protocols Relationship

The relationship between a service and a protocol

69
 Reference Models (1/4)

The OSI
reference
model.

70
Reference Models (2/4)

Messages are the mechanism for

communicating information
between protocols.

They are called Protocol Data

Units (PDUs).

PDUs are named differently on

each layer.

71
Reference Models (3/4)

The TCP/IP reference model 72

 Reference Models (4/4)

Protocols and networks in the TCP/IP model initially

73
Hybrid Model

The hybrid reference model to be used in this course

74
Example Networks
 The Internet

 Connection-Oriented Networks: X.25, Frame Relay,

and ATM

 Ethernet

 Wireless LANs: 802.11

75
 Internet Usage
 Traditional applications (1970 – 1990)

 E-mail

 News

 Remote login

 File transfer

76
Internet Architecture

77
 Wireless LANs (1/3)

(a) Wireless networking with a base station.

(b) Ad hoc networking.
78
Wireless LANs (2/3)

The range of a single radio may not cover the entire system.
79
Wireless LANs (3/3)

A multicell 802.11 network

80
International Telecommunication
Union (ITU)
 Main sectors
• Radio communications
• Telecommunications Standardization
• Development

 Classes of Members
• National governments
• Sector members
• Associate members
• Regulatory agencies

81
Metric Units

The principal metric prefixes

82