An Introduction to Computer

Networks

Ankita Verma

Some slides are from lectures by Nick Mckeown, Ion Stoica, Frans
Kaashoek, Hari Balakrishnan, and Sam Madden 1
 Chapter Outline
 Introduction (slides and 7.A)
 Layered Architecture (slides and 7.B &
7.D)
 Routing (slides and 7.D)
 Reliable Transmission & Flow Control
(slides and read 7.E)
 Congestion Control (slides and read 7.F)

2
 This Lecture
 What is a network?
 Sharing the infrastructure
 Circuit switching
 Packet switching
 Best Effort Service
 Analogy: the mail system
 Internet’s Best Effort Service

3
 Networks
 Why they are interesting?
 Overcome geographic limits
 Access remote data
 Separate clients and server
 Goal: Universal Communication (any to any)
 Design the cloud

Network

4
 Connectivity

Link
 DSL, T1, T3, ...
 Characterized by
 Capacity or bit-rate (1.5 Mb/s, 100Mb/s, …)
 Propagation delay (10us, 10ms, 100ms, ..)
 Transfer time on a link = #bit/bit-rate + propagation delay

5
 Connectivity
 A mesh requires N2 links  too costly

6
 We Have to Share the Infrastructure
 Intermediate nodes called switches or routers
allow the hosts to share the infrastructure

7
 This Lecture
 What is a network?
 Sharing the infrastructure
 Circuit switching
 Packet switching
 Best Effort Service
 Analogy: the mail system
 Internet’s Best Effort Service

8
 Two ways to share
 Circuitswitching (isochronous)
 Packet switching (asynchronous)

9
 Circuit Switching

It’s the method

Boston LA
 Switch Switch
used by the
telephone network Caller Callee

 A call has three processing delay at switch

phases: propagation
1. Establish circuit from delay
(1) between
end-to-end (“dialing”), caller and
2. Communicate, and Boston
switch
3. Close circuit (“tear (2)
down”).
DATA
 If circuit not
available: “busy (3)
signal”
10
 Circuit Switching:
Multiplexing/Demultiplexing

Switch Frames

Slots = 0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5

One way for sharing a circuit is TDM:

 Time divided into frames and frames divided into slots
 Relative slot position inside a frame determines which
conversation the data belongs to
 E.g., slot 0 belongs to the red conversation
 Need synchronization between sender and receiver

Lecture notes use the word “frame” for slot 11

 Circuit Switching
 Assume link capacity is C bits/sec
 Each communication requires R bits/sec
 #slots = C/R
 Maximum number of concurrent communications is C/R
 What happens if we have more than C/R communications?
 What happens if the a communication sends less/more
than R bits/sec?

 Design is unsuitable for computer networks where

transfers have variable rate (bursty)

12
 Internet Traffic Is Bursty

Daily traffic at an MIT-CSAIL router

Max In:12.2Mb/s Avg. In: 2.5Mb/s

Max Out: 12.8Mb/s Avg. Out: 3.4 Mb/s
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 Packet Switching
 Used in the Internet
 Data is sent in Packets
Host 1
(header contains control Host 2

info, e.g., source and Node 1 Node 2

destination addresses)

propagation
Header Data
delay
between
Host 1 &
 Per-packet routing transmission
Packet 1 Node 2 processing
time of
 At each node the entire Packet 1 Packet 2 delay of
packet is received, at Host 1
Packet 3
Packet 1 Packet 1
stored, and then Packet 2 at Node 2
Packet 1
forwarded (store-and- Packet 3

forward networks)
Packet 2
Packet 3
 No capacity is allocated
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 Packet Switching:
Multiplexing/Demultiplexing

Router
Queue

 Multiplex using a queue

 Routers need memory/buffer

 Demultiplex using information in packet header

 Header has destination
 Router has a routing table that contains information about
which link to use to reach a destination

15
Queues introduce
 Variable Delay
 Delay = Queuing delay + propagation delay + transmission
delay + processing delay
 Losses
 When packets arrive to a full queue/buffer they are
dropped

16
 Packet switching also show reordering
Packets in a flow may not follow the same path (depends
on routing as we will see later)  packets may be
reordered
Host C

Host A Host D

Node 1 Node 2
Node 3

Node 5

Host B
Node 7 Host E
Node 6
Node 4

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 This Lecture
 What is a network?
 Sharing the Infrastructure
 Circuit switching
 Packet switching
 Best Effort Service
 Analogy: the mail system
 Internet’s Best Effort Service

18
 The mail system

MIT Stanford

Dina Nick

Admin Admin

19
Characteristics of the mail system
 Each envelope is individually routed
 No time guarantee for delivery
 No guarantee of delivery in sequence
 No guarantee of delivery at all!
 Things get lost
 How can we acknowledge delivery?
 Retransmission
 How to determine when to retransmit? Timeout?
 If message is re-sent too soon  duplicates

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 The mail system

MIT Stanford

Dina Nick

Admin Admin

21
 The Internet
Nms.csail.mit.edu Leland.Stanford.edu

Dina Nick

O.S. Data Header Data Header

O.S.
Packet

22
Characteristics of the Internet
 Each packet is individually routed
 No time guarantee for delivery
 No guarantee of delivery in sequence
 No guarantee of delivery at all!
 Things get lost
 Acknowledgements
 Retransmission
 How to determine when to retransmit? Timeout?
 If packet is re-transmitted too soon 
duplicate

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 Best Effort
No Guarantees:
 Variable Delay (jitter)
 Variable rate
 Packet loss
 Duplicates
 Reordering
 (notes also state maximum packet length)

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Differences Between Circuit & Packet Switching
Circuit-switching Packet-Switching

Guaranteed capacity No guarantees (best effort)

Capacity is wasted if data is More efficient

bursty
Before sending data Send data immediately
establishes a path
All data in a single flow Different packets might
follow one path follow different paths
No reordering; constant Packets may be reordered,
delay; no pkt drops delayed, or dropped
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 This Lecture
 We learned how to share the network
infrastructure between many
connections/flows

 We also learned about the implications of

the sharing scheme (circuit or packet
switching) on the service that the
traffic receives

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