Ethernet Tutorial - Part I: Networking Basics

Computer networking has become an integral part of business today. Individuals,

professionals and academics have also learned to rely on computer networks for
capabilities such as electronic mail and access to remote databases for research and
communication purposes. Networking has thus become an increasingly pervasive,
worldwide reality because it is fast, efficient, reliable and effective. Just how all this
information is transmitted, stored, categorized and accessed remains a mystery to the
average computer user.

This tutorial will explain the basics of some of the most popular technologies used in
networking, and will include the following:

 Types of Networks - including LANs, WANs and WLANs

 The Internet and Beyond - The Internet and its contributions to intranets and
extranets
 Types of LAN Technology - including Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, 10
Gigabit Ethernet,
ATM, PoE and Token Ring
 Networking and Ethernet Basics - including standard code, media, topographies,
collisions and CSMA/CD
 Ethernet Products - including transceivers, network interface cards, hubs and
repeaters

Types of Networks

In describing the basics of networking technology, it will be helpful to explain the different
types of networks in use.

Local Area Networks (LANs)

A network is any collection of independent computers that exchange information with each
other over a shared communication medium. Local Area Networks or LANs are usually
confined to a limited geographic area, such as a single building or a college campus. LANs
can be small, linking as few as three computers, but can often link hundreds of computers
used by thousands of people. The development of standard networking protocols and
media has resulted in worldwide proliferation of LANs throughout business and educational
organizations.

Wide Area Networks (WANs)

Often elements of a network are widely separated physically. Wide area networking
combines multiple LANs that are geographically separate. This is accomplished by
connecting the several LANs with dedicated leased lines such as a T1 or a T3, by dial-up
phone lines (both synchronous and asynchronous), by satellite links and by data packet
carrier services. WANs can be as simple as a modem and a remote access server for
employees to dial into, or it can be as complex as hundreds of branch offices globally
linked. Special routing protocols and filters minimize the expense of sending data over
vast distances.

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs)

 Wireless LANs, or WLANs, use radio frequency (RF) technology to transmit and receive
data over the air. This minimizes the need for wired connections. WLANs give users
mobility as they allow connection to a local area network without having to be physically
connected by a cable. This freedom means users can access shared resources without
looking for a place to plug in cables, provided that their terminals are mobile and within
the designated network coverage area. With mobility, WLANs give flexibility and increased
productivity, appealing to both entrepreneurs and to home users. WLANs may also enable
network administrators to connect devices that may be physically difficult to reach with a
cable.

The Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) developed the 802.11
specification for wireless LAN technology. 802.11 specifies over-the-air interface between
a wireless client and a base station, or between two wireless clients. WLAN 802.11
standards also have security protocols that were developed to provide the same level of
security as that of a wired LAN.
The first of these protocols is Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP). WEP provides security by
encrypting data sent over radio waves from end point to end point.

The second WLAN security protocol is Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). WPA was developed
as an upgrade to the security features of WEP. It works with existing products that are
WEP-enabled but provides two key improvements: improved data encryption through the
temporal key integrity protocol (TKIP) which scrambles the keys using a hashing
algorithm. It has means for integrity-checking to ensure that keys have not been
tampered with. WPA also provides user authentication with the extensible authentication
protocol (EAP).

Wireless Protocols

Specification Data Rate Modulation Scheme Security

802.11 1 or 2 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz band FHSS, DSSS WEP and
WPA

802.11a 54 Mbps in the 5 GHz band OFDM WEP and

WPA

802.11b/High 11 Mbps (with a fallback to 5.5, 2, DSSS with CCK WEP and
Rate/Wi-Fi and 1 Mbps) in the 2.4 GHz band WPA

802.11g/Wi-Fi 54 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz band OFDM when above 20Mbps, DSSS WEP and
with CCK when below 20Mbps WPA

The Internet and Beyond

More than just a technology, the Internet has become a way of life for many people, and
it has spurred a revolution of sorts for both public and private sharing of information. The
most popular source of information about almost anything, the Internet is used daily by
technical and non-technical users alike.

The Internet:  The Largest Network of All

With the meteoric rise in demand for connectivity, the Internet has become a major
communications highway for millions of users. It is a decentralized system of linked
networks that are worldwide in scope. It facilitates data communication services such as
remote log-in, file transfer, electronic mail, the World Wide Web and newsgroups. It
consists of independent hosts of computers that can designate which Internet services to
use and which of their local services to make available to the global community.

Initially restricted to military and academic institutions, the Internet now operates on a
three-level hierarchy composed of backbone networks, mid-level networks and stub
networks. It is a full-fledged conduit for any and all forms of information and commerce.
Internet websites now provide personal, educational, political and economic resources to
virtually any point on the planet.

Intranet:  A Secure Internet-like Network for Organizations

With advancements in browser-based software for the Internet, many private

organizations have implemented intranets. An intranet is a private network utilizing
Internet-type tools, but available only within that organization. For large organizations, an
intranet provides easy access to corporate information for designated employees.

Extranet:  A Secure Means for Sharing Information with Partners

While an intranet is used to disseminate confidential information within a corporation, an

extranet is commonly used by companies to share data in a secure fashion with their
business partners. Internet-type tools are used by content providers to update the
extranet. Encryption and user authentication means are provided to protect the
information, and to ensure that designated people with the proper access privileges are
allowed to view it.

Types of LAN Technology

Ethernet

Ethernet is the most popular physical layer LAN technology in use today. It defines the
number of conductors that are required for a connection, the performance thresholds that
can be expected, and provides the framework for data transmission. A standard Ethernet
network can transmit data at a rate up to 10 Megabits per second (10 Mbps). Other LAN
types include Token Ring, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Fiber
Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and LocalTalk.

Ethernet is popular because it strikes a good balance between speed, cost and ease of
installation. These benefits, combined with wide acceptance in the computer marketplace
and the ability to support virtually all popular network protocols, make Ethernet an ideal
networking technology for most computer users today.

The Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers developed an Ethernet standard
known as IEEE Standard 802.3. This standard defines rules for configuring an Ethernet
network and also specifies how the elements in an Ethernet network interact with one
another. By adhering to the IEEE standard, network equipment and network protocols can
communicate efficiently.

Fast Ethernet
The Fast Ethernet standard (IEEE 802.3u) has been established for Ethernet networks that
need higher transmission speeds. This standard raises the Ethernet speed limit from 10
Mbps to 100 Mbps with only minimal changes to the existing cable structure. Fast
Ethernet provides faster throughput for video, multimedia, graphics, Internet surfing and
stronger error detection and correction.

There are three types of Fast Ethernet: 100BASE-TX for use with level 5 UTP cable;
100BASE-FX for use with fiber-optic cable; and 100BASE-T4 which utilizes an extra two
wires for use with level 3 UTP cable. The 100BASE-TX standard has become the most
popular due to its close compatibility with the 10BASE-T Ethernet standard.

Network managers who want to incorporate Fast Ethernet into an existing configuration
are required to make many decisions. The number of users in each site on the network
that need the higher throughput must be determined; which segments of the backbone
need to be reconfigured specifically for 100BASE-T; plus what hardware is necessary in
order to connect the 100BASE-T segments with existing 10BASE-T segments. Gigabit
Ethernet is a future technology that promises a migration path beyond Fast Ethernet so
the next generation of networks will support even higher data transfer speeds.

Gigabit Ethernet

Gigabit Ethernet was developed to meet the need for faster communication networks with
applications such as multimedia and Voice over IP (VoIP). Also known as "gigabit-
Ethernet-over-copper" or 1000Base-T, GigE is a version of Ethernet that runs at speeds
10 times faster than 100Base-T. It is defined in the IEEE 802.3 standard and is currently
used as an enterprise backbone. Existing Ethernet LANs with 10 and 100 Mbps cards can
feed into a Gigabit Ethernet backbone to interconnect high performance switches, routers
and servers.

From the data link layer of the OSI model upward, the look and implementation of Gigabit
Ethernet is identical to that of Ethernet. The most important differences between Gigabit
Ethernet and Fast Ethernet include the additional support of full duplex operation in the
MAC layer and the data rates.

10 Gigabit Ethernet

10 Gigabit Ethernet is the fastest and most recent of the Ethernet standards. IEEE
802.3ae defines a version of Ethernet with a nominal rate of 10Gbits/s that makes it 10
times faster than Gigabit Ethernet.

Unlike other Ethernet systems, 10 Gigabit Ethernet is based entirely on the use of optical
fiber connections. This developing standard is moving away from a LAN design that
broadcasts to all nodes, toward a system which includes some elements of wide area
routing. As it is still very new, which of the standards will gain commercial acceptance has
yet to be determined.

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)

ATM is a cell-based fast-packet communication technique that can support data-transfer

rates from sub-T1 speeds to 10 Gbps. ATM achieves its high speeds in part by
 transmitting data in fixed-size cells and dispensing with error-correction protocols. It relies
on the inherent integrity of digital lines to ensure data integrity.

ATM can be integrated into an existing network as needed without having to update the
entire network. Its fixed-length cell-relay operation is the signaling technology of the
future and offers more predictable performance than variable length frames. Networks are
extremely versatile and an ATM network can connect points in a building, or across the
country, and still be treated as a single network.

Power over Ethernet (PoE)

PoE is a solution in which an electrical current is run to networking hardware over the
Ethernet Category 5 cable or higher. This solution does not require an extra AC power
cord at the product location. This minimizes the amount of cable needed as well as
eliminates the difficulties and cost of installing extra outlets.

LAN Technology Specifications

Name IEEE Data Media Type Maximum

Standard Rate Distance
Ethernet 802.3 10 Mbps 10Base-T 100 meters

Fast Ethernet/ 802.3u 100 Mbps 100Base-TX 100 meters

100Base-T 100Base-FX 2000 meters

Gigabit Ethernet/ 802.3z 1000 Mbps 1000Base-T 100 meters

GigE 1000Base-SX 275/550 meters
1000Base-LX 550/5000 meters

10 Gigabit Ethernet IEEE 802.3ae 10 Gbps 10GBase-SR 300 meters

10GBase-LX4 300m MMF/ 10km SMF
10GBase-LR/ER 10km/40km
10GBase-SW/LW/EW 300m/10km/40km

Token Ring

Token Ring is another form of network configuration. It differs from Ethernet in that all
messages are transferred in one direction along the ring at all times. Token Ring networks
sequentially pass a “token” to each connected device. When the token arrives at a
particular computer (or device), the recipient is allowed to transmit data onto the
network. Since only one device may be transmitting at any given time, no data collisions
occur. Access to the network is guaranteed, and time-sensitive applications can be
supported. However, these benefits come at a price. Component costs are usually higher,
and the networks themselves are considered to be more complex and difficult to
implement. Various PC vendors have been proponents of Token Ring networks.

Networking and Ethernet Basics

Protocols

After a physical connection has been established, network protocols define the standards
that allow computers to communicate. A protocol establishes the rules and encoding
specifications for sending data. This defines how computers identify one another on a
network, the form that the data should take in transit, and how this information is
processed once it reaches its final destination. Protocols also define procedures for
determining the type of error checking that will be used, the data compression method, if
one is needed, how the sending device will indicate that it has finished sending a
message, how the receiving device will indicate that it has received a message, and the
handling of lost or damaged transmissions or "packets".

The main types of network protocols in use today are: TCP/IP (for UNIX, Windows NT,
Windows 95 and other platforms); IPX (for Novell NetWare); DECnet (for networking
Digital Equipment Corp. computers); AppleTalk (for Macintosh computers), and
NetBIOS/NetBEUI (for LAN Manager and Windows NT networks).

Although each network protocol is different, they all share the same physical cabling. This
common method of accessing the physical network allows multiple protocols to peacefully
coexist over the network media, and allows the builder of a network to use common
hardware for a variety of protocols. This concept is known as "protocol independence,"
which means that devices which are compatible at the physical and data link layers allow
the user to run many different protocols over the same medium.

The Open System Interconnection Model

The Open System Interconnection (OSI) model specifies how dissimilar computing devices
such as Network Interface Cards (NICs), bridges and routers exchange data over a
network by offering a networking framework for implementing protocols in seven layers.
Beginning at the application layer, control is passed from one layer to the next. The
following describes the seven layers as defined by the OSI model, shown in the order they
occur whenever a user transmits information.

Layer 7: Application
This layer supports the application and end-user processes. Within this
layer, user privacy is considered and communication partners, service
and constraints are all identified. File transfers, email, Telnet and FTP
applications are all provided within this layer.

Layer 6: Presentation (Syntax)

Within this layer, information is translated back and forth between
application and network formats.  This translation transforms the
information into data the application layer and network recognize
regardless of encryption and formatting.

Layer 5: Session
Within this layer, connections between applications are made,
managed and terminated as needed to allow for data exchanges
between applications at each end of a dialogue.

Layer 4: Transport
Complete data transfer is ensured as information is transferred
transparently between systems in this layer. The transport layer also
assures appropriate flow control and end-to-end error recovery.

Layer 3: Network
Using switching and routing technologies, this layer is responsible for
creating virtual circuits to transmit information from node to node.
 Other functions include routing, forwarding, addressing,
internetworking, error and congestion control, and packet sequencing.

Layer 2: Data Link

Information in data packets are encoded and decoded into bits within
this layer. Errors from the physical layer flow control and frame
synchronization are corrected here utilizing transmission protocol
knowledge and management. This layer consists of two sub layers: the
Media Access Control (MAC) layer, which controls the way networked
computers gain access to data and transmit it, and the Logical Link
Control (LLC) layer, which controls frame synchronization, flow control
and error checking.

Layer 1: Physical
This layer enables hardware to send and receive data over a carrier
such as cabling, a card or other physical means. It conveys the
bitstream through the network at the electrical and mechanical level.
Fast Ethernet, RS232, and ATM are all protocols with physical layer
components.

This order is then reversed as information is received, so that the physical layer
is the first and application layer is the final layer that information passes
through.

Standard Ethernet Code

In order to understand standard Ethernet code, one must understand what each digit
means. Following is a guide:

Guide to Ethernet Coding

10 at the beginning means the network operates at 10Mbps.

BASE means the type of signaling used is baseband.

2 or 5 at the end indicates the maximum cable length in meters.

T the end stands for twisted-pair cable.

X at the end stands for full duplex-capable cable.

FL at the end stands for fiber optic cable.

For example: 100BASE-TX indicates a Fast Ethernet connection (100 Mbps) that uses a
twisted pair cable capable of full-duplex transmissions.

Media

An important part of designing and installing an Ethernet is selecting the appropriate

Ethernet medium. There are four major types of media in use today: Thickwire for
10BASE5 networks; thin coax for 10BASE2 networks; unshielded twisted pair (UTP) for
10BASE-T networks; and fiber optic for 10BASE-FL or Fiber-Optic Inter-Repeater Link
(FOIRL) networks. This wide variety of media reflects the evolution of Ethernet and also
points to the technology's flexibility. Thickwire was one of the first cabling systems used in
Ethernet, but it was expensive and difficult to use. This evolved to thin coax, which is
easier to work with and less expensive. It is important to note that each type of Ethernet,
Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, has its own preferred media types.
 The most popular wiring schemes are 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX, which use unshielded
twisted pair (UTP) cable. This is similar to telephone cable and comes in a variety of
grades, with each higher grade offering better performance. Level 5 cable is the highest,
most expensive grade, offering support for transmission rates of up to 100 Mbps. Level 4
and level 3 cable are less expensive, but cannot support the same data throughput
speeds; level 4 cable can support speeds of up to 20 Mbps; level 3 up to 16 Mbps. The
100BASE-T4 standard allows for support of 100 Mbps Ethernet over level 3 cables, but at
the expense of adding another pair of wires (4 pair instead of the 2 pair used for 10BASE-
T). For most users, this is an awkward scheme and therefore 100BASE-T4 has seen little
popularity. Level 2 and level 1 cables are not used in the design of 10BASE-T networks.

For specialized applications, fiber-optic, or 10BASE-FL, Ethernet segments are popular.

Fiber-optic cable is more expensive, but it is invaluable in situations where electronic
emissions and environmental hazards are a concern. Fiber-optic cable is often used in
inter-building applications to insulate networking equipment from electrical damage
caused by lightning. Because it does not conduct electricity, fiber-optic cable can also be
useful in areas where heavy electromagnetic interference is present, such as on a factory
floor. The Ethernet standard allows for fiber-optic cable segments up to two kilometers
long, making fiber-optic Ethernet perfect for connecting nodes and buildings that are
otherwise not reachable with copper media.

Cable Grade Capabilities

Cable Makeup Frequency Data Rate Network

Name Support Compatibility
Cat-5 4 twisted pairs of 100 MHz Up to ATM, Token
copper wire -- 1000Mbps Ring,1000Base-T,
terminated by RJ45 100Base-TX,
connectors 10Base-T

Cat-5e 4 twisted pairs of 100 MHz Up to 10Base-T,

copper wire -- 1000Mbps 100Base-TX,
terminated by RJ45 1000Base-T
connectors

Cat-6 4 twisted pairs of 250 MHz 1000Mbps 10Base-T,

copper wire -- 100Base-TX,
terminated by RJ45 1000Base-T
connectors

Topologies

Network topology is the geometric arrangement of nodes and cable links in a LAN. Two
general configurations are used, bus and star. These two topologies define how nodes are
connected to one another in a communication network. A node is an active device
connected to the network, such as a computer or a printer. A node can also be a piece of
networking equipment such as a hub, switch or a router.

A bus topology consists of nodes linked together in a series with each node connected to a
long cable or bus. Many nodes can tap into the bus and begin communication with all
other nodes on that cable segment. A break anywhere in the cable will usually cause the
entire segment to be inoperable until the break is repaired. Examples of bus topology
include 10BASE2 and 10BASE5.
General Topology Configurations

10BASE-T Ethernet and Fast Ethernet use

a star topology where access is controlled
by a central computer. Generally a
computer is located at one end of the
segment, and the other end is terminated
in central location with a hub or a switch.
Because UTP is often run in conjunction
with telephone cabling, this central
location can be a telephone closet or
other area where it is convenient to
connect the UTP segment to a backbone.
The primary advantage of this type of
network is reliability, for if one of these
'point-to-point' segments has a break; it
will only affect the two nodes on that
link. Other computer users on the
network continue to operate as if that
segment were non-existent.

Collisions

Ethernet is a shared medium, so there

are rules for sending packets of data to
avoid conflicts and to protect data
integrity. Nodes determine when the network is available for sending packets. It is
possible that two or more nodes at different locations will attempt to send data at the
same time. When this happens, a packet collision occurs.

Minimizing collisions is a crucial element in the design and operation of networks.

Increased collisions are often the result of too many users on the network. This leads to
competition for network bandwidth and can slow the performance of the network from the
user's point of view. Segmenting the network is one way of reducing an overcrowded
network, i.e., by dividing it into different pieces logically joined together with a bridge or
switch.

CSMA/CD

In order to manage collisions Ethernet uses a protocol called Carrier Sense Multiple
Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD). CSMA/CD is a type of contention protocol that
defines how to respond when a collision is detected, or when two devices attempt to
transmit packages simultaneously. Ethernet allows each device to send messages at any
time without having to wait for network permission; thus, there is a high possibility that
devices may try to send messages at the same time.
After detecting a collision, each device that was transmitting a packet delays a random
amount of time before re-transmitting the packet. If another collision occurs, the device
waits twice as long before trying to re-transmit.

Ethernet Products

The standards and technology just discussed will help define the specific products that
network managers use to build Ethernet networks. The following presents the key
products needed to build an Ethernet LAN.

Transceivers

Transceivers are also referred to as Medium Access Units (MAUs). They are used to
connect nodes to the various Ethernet media. Most computers and network interface cards
contain a built-in 10BASE-T or 10BASE2 transceiver which allows them to be connected
directly to Ethernet without the need for an external transceiver.

Many Ethernet devices provide an attachment unit interface (AUI) connector to allow the
user to connect to any type of medium via an external transceiver. The AUI connector
consists of a 15-pin D-shell type connector, female on the computer side, male on the
transceiver side.

For Fast Ethernet networks, a new interface called the MII (Media Independent Interface)
was developed to offer a flexible way to support 100 Mbps connections. The MII is a
popular way to connect 100BASE-FX links to copper-based Fast Ethernet devices.

Network Interface Cards

Network Interface Cards, commonly referred to as NICs, are used to connect a PC to a

network. The NIC provides a physical connection between the networking cable and the
computer's internal bus. Different computers have different bus architectures. PCI bus
slots are most commonly found on 486/Pentium PCs and ISA expansion slots are
commonly found on 386 and older PCs. NICs come in three basic varieties: 8-bit, 16-bit,
and 32-bit. The larger the number of bits that can be transferred to the NIC, the faster
the NIC can transfer data to the network cable. Most NICs are designed for a particular
type of network, protocol, and medium, though some can serve multiple networks.

Many NIC adapters comply with plug-and-play specifications. On these systems, NICs are
automatically configured without user intervention, while on non-plug-and-play systems,
configuration is done manually through a set-up program and/or DIP switches.

Cards are available to support almost all networking standards. Fast Ethernet NICs are
often 10/100 capable, and will automatically set to the appropriate speed. Gigabit
Ethernet NICs are 10/100/1000 capable with auto negotiation depending on the user’s
Ethernet speed. Full duplex networking is another option where a dedicated connection to
a switch allows a NIC to operate at twice the speed.

Hubs/Repeaters

Hubs/repeaters are used to connect together two or more Ethernet segments of any type
of medium. In larger designs, signal quality begins to deteriorate as segments exceed
 their maximum length. Hubs provide the signal amplification required to allow a segment
to be extended a greater distance. A hub repeats any incoming signal to all ports.

Ethernet hubs are necessary in star topologies such as 10BASE-T. A multi-port twisted
pair hub allows several point-to-point segments to be joined into one network. One end of
the point-to-point link is attached to the hub and the other is attached to the computer. If
the hub is attached to a backbone, then all computers at the end of the twisted pair
segments can communicate with all the hosts on the backbone. The number and type of
hubs in any one-collision domain is limited by the Ethernet rules. These repeater rules are
discussed in more detail later.

A very important fact to note about hubs is that they only allow users to share Ethernet. A
network of hubs/repeaters is termed a "shared Ethernet," meaning that all members of
the network are contending for transmission of data onto a single network (collision
domain). A hub/repeater propagates all electrical signals including the invalid ones.
Therefore, if a collision or electrical interference occurs on one segment, repeaters make it
appear on all others as well. This means that individual members of a shared network will
only get a percentage of the available network bandwidth.

Basically, the number and type of hubs in any one collision domain for 10Mbps Ethernet is
limited by the following rules:

Network Type Max Nodes Per Segment Max Distance Per Segment

10BASE-T 2 100m

10BASE-FL 2 2000m

Back: Tutorial Index Next: Ethernet Tutorial Part II: Adding Speed
o  

Ethernet Tutorial - Part II: Adding Speed

The phrase “you can never get too much of a good thing” can certainly be applied to
networking. Once the benefits of networking are demonstrated, there is a thirst for even
faster, more reliable connections to support a growing number of users and highly-
complex applications.

How to obtain that added bandwidth can be an issue. While repeaters allow LANs to
extend beyond normal distance limitations, they still limit the number of nodes that can
be supported.
Bridges and switches on the other hand allow LANs to grow significantly larger by virtue of
their ability to support full Ethernet segments on each port. Additionally, bridges and
switches selectively filter network traffic to only those packets needed on each segment,
significantly increasing throughput on each segment and on the overall network.

Network managers continue to look for better performance and more flexibility for
network topologies, bridges and switches. To provide a better understanding of these and
related technologies, this tutorial will cover:
  Bridges
 Ethernet Switches
 Routers
 Network Design Criteria
 When and Why Ethernets Become Too Slow
 Increasing Performance with Fast and Gigabit Ethernet

Bridges

Bridges connect two LAN segments of similar or dissimilar types, such as Ethernet and
Token Ring. This allows two Ethernet segments to behave like a single Ethernet allowing
any pair of computers on the extended Ethernet to communicate. Bridges are transparent
therefore computers don’t know whether a bridge separates them.

Bridges map the Ethernet addresses of the nodes residing on each network segment and
allow only necessary traffic to pass through the bridge. When a packet is received by the
bridge, the bridge determines the destination and source segments. If the segments are
the same, the packet is dropped or also referred to as “filtered"; if the segments are
different, then the packet is "forwarded" to the correct segment. Additionally, bridges do
not forward bad or misaligned packets.

Bridges are also called "store-and-forward" devices because they look at the whole
Ethernet packet before making filtering or forwarding decisions. Filtering packets and
regenerating forwarded packets enables bridging technology to split a network into
separate collision domains. Bridges are able to isolate network problems; if interference
occurs on one of two segments, the bridge will receive and discard an invalid frame
keeping the problem from affecting the other segment. This allows for greater distances
and more repeaters to be used in the total network design.

Dealing with Loops

Most bridges are self-learning task bridges; they determine the user Ethernet addresses
on the segment by building a table as packets that are passed through the network.
However, this self-learning capability dramatically raises the potential of network loops in
networks that have many bridges. A loop presents conflicting information on which
segment a specific address is located and forces the device to forward all traffic. The
Distributed Spanning Tree (DST) algorithm is a software standard (found in the IEEE
802.1d specification) that describes how switches and bridges can communicate to avoid
network loops.

Ethernet Switches

Ethernet switches are an expansion of the Ethernet bridging concept. The advantage of
using a switched Ethernet is parallelism. Up to one-half of the computers connected to a
switch can send data at the same time.

LAN switches link multiple networks together and have two basic architectures: cut-
through and store-and-forward. In the past, cut-through switches were faster because
they examined the packet destination address only before forwarding it on to its
destination segment. A store-and-forward switch works like a bridge in that it accepts and
analyzes the entire packet before forwarding it to its destination.

Historically, store-and-forward took more time to examine the entire packet, although one
benefit was that it allowed the switch to catch certain packet errors and keep them from
propagating through the network. Today, the speed of store-and-forward switches has
caught up with cut-through switches so the difference between the two is minimal. Also,
there are a large number of hybrid switches available that mix both cut-through and
store-and-forward architectures.

Both cut-through and store-and-forward switches separate a network into collision

domains, allowing network design rules to be extended. Each of the segments attached to
an Ethernet switch has a full 10 Mbps of bandwidth shared by fewer users, which results
in better performance (as opposed to hubs that only allow bandwidth sharing from a
single Ethernet). Newer switches today offer high-speed links, either Fast Ethernet,
Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet or ATM. These are used to link switches together or
give added bandwidth to high-traffic servers. A network composed of a number of
switches linked together via uplinks is termed a "collapsed backbone" network.

Routers

A router is a device that forwards data packets along networks, and determines which way
to send each data packet based on its current understanding of the state of its connected
networks. Routers are typically connected to at least two networks, commonly two LANs
or WANs or a LAN and its Internet Service Provider’s (ISPs) network. Routers are located
at gateways, the places where two or more networks connect.

Routers filter out network traffic by specific protocol rather than by packet address.
Routers also divide networks logically instead of physically. An IP router can divide a
network into various subnets so that only traffic destined for particular IP addresses can
pass between segments. Network speed often decreases due to this type of intelligent
forwarding. Such filtering takes more time than that exercised in a switch or bridge, which
only looks at the Ethernet address. However, in more complex networks, overall efficiency
is improved by using routers.

Network Design Criteria

Ethernets and Fast Ethernets have design rules that must be followed in order to function
correctly. The maximum number of nodes, number of repeaters and maximum segment
distances are defined by the electrical and mechanical design properties of each type of
Ethernet media.

A network using repeaters, for instance, functions with the timing constraints of Ethernet.
Although electrical signals on the Ethernet media travel near the speed of light, it still
takes a finite amount of time for the signal to travel from one end of a large Ethernet to
another. The Ethernet standard assumes it will take roughly 50 microseconds for a signal
to reach its destination.

Ethernet is subject to the "5-4-3" rule of repeater placement: the network can only have
five segments connected; it can only use four repeaters; and of the five segments, only
three can have users attached to them; the other two must be inter-repeater links.

If the design of the network violates these repeater and placement rules, then timing
guidelines will not be met and the sending station will resend that packet. This can lead to
lost packets and excessive resent packets, which can slow network performance and
create trouble for applications. New Ethernet standards (Fast Ethernet, GigE, and 10 GigE)
have modified repeater rules, since the minimum packet size takes less time to transmit
than regular Ethernet. The length of the network links allows for a fewer number of
repeaters. In Fast Ethernet networks, there are two classes of repeaters. Class I repeaters
have a latency of 0.7 microseconds or less and are limited to one repeater per network.
Class II repeaters have a latency of 0.46 microseconds or less and are limited to two
repeaters per network. The following are the distance (diameter) characteristics for these
types of Fast Ethernet repeater combinations:

Fast Ethernet Copper Fiber

No Repeaters 100m 412m*

One Class I Repeater 200m 272m
One Class II Repeater 200m 272m
Two Class II Repeaters 205m 228m
* Full Duplex Mode 2 km

When conditions require greater distances or an increase in the number of

nodes/repeaters, then a bridge, router or switch can be used to connect multiple networks
together. These devices join two or more separate networks, allowing network design
criteria to be restored. Switches allow network designers to build large networks that
function well. The reduction in costs of bridges and switches reduces the impact of
repeater rules on network design.

Each network connected via one of these devices is referred to as a separate collision
domain in the overall network.

When and Why Ethernets Become Too Slow

As more users are added to a shared network or as applications requiring more data are
added, performance deteriorates. This is because all users on a shared network are
competitors for the Ethernet bus. On a moderately loaded 10Mbps Ethernet network that
is shared by 30-50 users, that network will only sustain throughput in the neighborhood of
2.5Mbps after accounting for packet overhead, interpacket gaps and collisions.

Increasing the number of users (and therefore packet transmissions) creates a higher
collision potential. Collisions occur when two or more nodes attempt to send information
at the same time. When they realize that a collision has occurred, each node shuts off for
a random time before attempting another transmission. With shared Ethernet, the
likelihood of collision increases as more nodes are added to the shared collision domain of
the shared Ethernet. One of the steps to alleviate this problem is to segment traffic with a
bridge or switch. A switch can replace a hub and improve network performance. For
example, an eight-port switch can support eight Ethernets, each running at a full 10 Mbps.
Another option is to dedicate one or more of these switched ports to a high traffic device
such as a file server.

Greater throughput is required to support multimedia and video applications. When added
to the network, Ethernet switches provide a number of enhancements over shared
networks that can support these applications. Foremost is the ability to divide networks
into smaller and faster segments. Ethernet switches examine each packet, determine
where that packet is destined and then forward that packet to only those ports to which
the packet needs to go. Modern switches are able to do all these tasks at "wirespeed,"
that is, without delay.

Aside from deciding when to forward or when to filter the packet, Ethernet switches also
completely regenerate the Ethernet packet. This regeneration and re-timing allows each
port on a switch to be treated as a complete Ethernet segment, capable of supporting the
full length of cable along with all of the repeater restrictions. The standard Ethernet slot
time required in CSMA/CD half-duplex modes is not long enough for running over 100m
copper, so Carrier Extension is used to guarantee a 512-bit slot time.

Additionally, bad packets are identified by Ethernet switches and immediately dropped
from any future transmission. This "cleansing" activity keeps problems isolated to a single
segment and keeps them from disrupting other network activity. This aspect of switching
is extremely important in a network environment where hardware failures are to be
anticipated. Full duplex doubles the bandwidth on a link, and is another method used to
increase bandwidth to dedicated workstations or servers. Full duplex modes are available
for standard Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, and Gigabit Ethernet. To use full duplex, special
network interface cards are installed in the server or workstation, and the switch is
programmed to support full duplex operation.

Increasing Performance with Fast and Gigabit Ethernet

Implementing Fast or Gigabit Ethernet to increase performance is the next logical step
when Ethernet becomes too slow to meet user needs. Higher traffic devices can be
connected to switches or each other via Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet, providing a
great increase in bandwidth. Many switches are designed with this in mind, and have Fast
 Ethernet uplinks available for connection to a file server or other switches. Eventually,
Fast Ethernet can be deployed to user desktops by equipping all computers with Fast
Ethernet network interface cards and using Fast Ethernet switches and repeaters.

With an understanding of the underlying technologies and products in use in Ethernet

networks, the next tutorial will advance to a discussion of some of the most popular real-
world applications.

o  
Solutions Calculator

Ethernet Tutorial - Part III: Sharing Devices

A Look at Device Server Technology

Device networking starts with a device server, which allows almost any device with serial
connectivity to connect to Ethernet networks quickly and cost-effectively. These products
include all of the elements needed for device networking and because of their scalability;
they do not require a server or gateway.

This tutorial provides an introduction to the functionality of a variety of device servers.  It

will cover print servers, terminal servers and console servers, as well as embedded and
external device servers.  For each of these categories, there will also be a review of
specific Lantronix offerings.

An Introduction to Device Servers

A device server is characterized by a minimal operating architecture that requires no per

seat network operating system license, and client access that is independent of any
operating system or proprietary protocol. In addition the device server is a "closed box,"
delivering extreme ease of installation, minimal maintenance, and can be managed by the
client remotely via a web browser.

By virtue of its independent operating system, protocol independence, small size and
flexibility, device servers are able to meet the demands of virtually any network-enabling
application. The demand for device servers is rapidly increasing because organizations
need to leverage their networking infrastructure investment across all of their resources.
Many currently installed devices lack network ports or require dedicated serial connections
for management -- device servers allow those devices to become connected to the
network.

Device servers are currently used in a wide variety of environments in which machinery,
instruments, sensors and other discrete devices generate data that was previously
inaccessible through enterprise networks. They are also used for security systems, point-
of-sale applications, network management and many other applications where network
access to a device is required.
As device servers become more widely adopted and implemented into specialized
applications, we can expect to see variations in size, mounting capabilities and enclosures.
Device servers are also available as embedded devices, capable of providing instant
networking support for developers of future products where connectivity will be required.
Print servers, terminal servers, remote access servers and network time servers are
examples of device servers which are specialized for particular functions. Each of these
types of servers has unique configuration attributes in hardware or software that help
them to perform best in their particular arena.

External Device Servers

External device servers are stand-alone serial-to-wireless (802.11b) or serial-to-

Ethernet device servers that can put just about any device with serial connectivity on the
network in a matter of minutes so it can be managed remotely.

External Device Servers from Lantronix

Lantronix external device servers provide the ability to remotely control, monitor,
diagnose and troubleshoot equipment over a network or the Internet.  By opting for a
powerful external device with full network and web capabilities, companies are able to
preserve their present equipment investments.   

Lantronix offers a full line of external device servers:  Ethernet or wireless, advanced
encryption for maximum security, and device servers designed for commercial or heavy-
duty industrial applications.

Wireless: 
Providing a whole new level of flexibility and mobility, these devices
allow users to connect devices that are inaccessible via cabling.  Users
can also add intelligence to their businesses by putting mobile devices,
such as medical instruments or warehouse equipment, on networks.

Security:
Ideal for protecting data such as business transactions, customer
information, financial records, etc., these devices provide enhanced
security for networked devices.

Commercial: 
These devices enable users to network-enable their existing equipment
(such as POS devices, AV equipment, medical instruments, etc.) simply
and cost-effectively, without the need for special software.

Industrial: 
For heavy-duty factory applications, Lantronix offers a full complement
of industrial-strength external device servers designed for use with
manufacturing, assembly and factory automation equipment. All
models support Modbus industrial protocols.

Embedded Device Servers

Embedded device servers integrate all the required hardware and software into a single
embedded device.  They use a device’s serial port to web-enable or network-enable
products quickly and easily without the complexities of extensive hardware and software
integration. Embedded device servers are typically plug-and-play solutions that operate
independently of a PC and usually include a wireless or Ethernet connection, operating
system, an embedded web server, a full TCP/IP protocol stack, and some sort of
encryption for secure communications.
Embedded Device Servers from Lantronix

Lantronix recognizes that design engineers are looking for a simple, cost-effective and
reliable way to seamlessly embed network connectivity into their products.  In a fraction
of the time it would take to develop a custom solution, Lantronix embedded device
servers provide a variety of proven, fully integrated products.  OEMs can add full
Ethernet and/or wireless connectivity to their products so they can be managed over a
network or the Internet.

Module: 
These devices allow users tonetwork-enable just about any electronic
device with Ethernet and/or wireless connectivity.

Board-Level: 
Users can integrate networking capabilities onto the circuit boards of
equipment like factory machinery, security systems and medical
devices.

Single-Chip Solutions: 
These powerful, system-on-chip solutions help users address
networking issues early in the design cycle to support the most popular
embedded networking technologies.

Terminal Servers

Terminal servers are used to enable terminals to transmit data to and from host
computers across LANs, without requiring each terminal to have its own direct connection.
And while the terminal server's existence is still justified by convenience and cost
considerations, its inherent intelligence provides many more advantages. Among these is
enhanced remote monitoring and control. Terminal servers that support protocols like
SNMP make networks easier to manage.
Devices that are attached to a network through a server can be shared between terminals
and hosts at both the local site and throughout the network. A single terminal may be
connected to several hosts at the same time (in multiple concurrent sessions), and can
switch between them. Terminal servers are also used to network devices that have only
serial outputs. A connection between serial ports on different servers is opened, allowing
data to move between the two devices.

Given its natural translation ability, a multi-protocol server can perform conversions
between the protocols it knows such as LAT and TCP/IP. While server bandwidth is not
adequate for large file transfers, it can easily handle host-to-host inquiry/response
applications, electronic mailbox checking, etc. In addition, it is far more economical than
the alternatives -- acquiring expensive host software and special-purpose converters.
Multiport device and print servers give users greater flexibility in configuring and
managing their networks.

Whether it is moving printers and other peripherals from one network to another,
expanding the dimensions of interoperability or preparing for growth, terminal servers can
fulfill these requirements without major rewiring. Today, terminal servers offer a full range
of functionality, ranging from 8 to 32 ports, giving users the power to connect terminals,
modems, servers and virtually any serial device for remote access over IP networks.
Print Servers

Print servers enable printers to be shared by other users on the network. Supporting
either parallel and/or serial interfaces, a print server accepts print jobs from any person
on the network using supported protocols and manages those jobs on each appropriate
printer.

The earliest print servers were external devices, which supported printing via parallel or
serial ports on the device. Typically, only one or two protocols were supported. The latest
generations of print servers support multiple protocols, have multiple parallel and serial
connection options and, in some cases, are small enough to fit directly on the parallel port
of the printer itself. Some printers have embedded or internal print servers. This design
has an integral communication benefit between printer and print server, but lacks
flexibility if the printer has physical problems.

Print servers generally do not contain a large amount of memory; printers simply store
information in a queue. When the desired printer becomes available, they allow the host
to transmit the data to the appropriate printer port on the server. The print server can
then simply queue and print each job in the order in which print requests are received,
regardless of protocol used or the size of the job.

Device Server Technology in the Data Center

The IT/data center is considered the pulse of any modern business.  Remote management
enables users to monitor and manage global networks, systems and IT equipment from
anywhere and at any time.  Device servers play a major role in allowing for the remote
capabilities and flexibility required for businesses to maximize personnel resources and
technology ROI.

Console Servers

Console servers provide the flexibility of both standard and emergency remote access via
attachment to the network or to a modem. Remote console management serves as a
valuable tool to help maximize system uptime and system operating costs.
Secure console servers provide familiar tools to leverage the console or emergency
management port built into most serial devices, including servers, switches, routers,
telecom equipment - anything in a rack - even if the network is down. They also supply
complete in-band and out-of-band local and remote management for the data center with
tools such as telnet and SSH that help manage the performance and availability of critical
business information systems.

Console Management Solutions from Lantronix

Lantronix provides complete in-band and out-of-band local and remote management
solutions for the data center. SecureLinx™ secure console management products give IT
managers unsurpassed ability to securely and remotely manage serial devices, including
servers, switches, routers, telecom equipment - anything in a rack - even if the network is
down.

Conclusion

The ability to manage virtually any electronic device over a network or the Internet is
changing the way the world works and does business. With the ability to remotely
manage, monitor, diagnose and control equipment, a new level of functionality is added to
networking — providing business with increased intelligence and efficiency.  Lantronix
leads the way in developing new network intelligence and has been a tireless pioneer in
machine-to-machine (M2M) communication technology.

We hope this introduction to networking has been helpful and informative. This tutorial
was meant to be an overview and not a comprehensive guide that explains everything
there is to know about planning, installing, administering and troubleshooting a network.
There are many Internet websites, books and magazines available that explain all aspects
of computer networks, from LANs to WANs, network hardware to running cable. To learn
about these subjects in greater detail, check your local bookstore, software retailer or
newsstand for more information.

Fast Ethernet Tutorial

A Guide to Using Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet

Network managers today must contend with the requirements of utilizing faster media,
mounting bandwidth and play “traffic cop” to an ever-growing network infrastructure.
Now, more than ever, it’s imperative for them to understand the basics of using various
Ethernet technologies to manage their networks.

This tutorial will explain the basic principles of Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet
technologies, describing how each improves on basic Ethernet technology. It will offer
guidance on how to implement these technologies as well as some “rules of the road” for
successful repeater selection and usage.

Introduction to Ethernet, Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet

It is nearly impossible to discuss networking without the mention of Ethernet, Fast

Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet. But, in order to determine which form is needed for your
application, it’s important to first understand what each provides and how they work
together.

A good starting point is to explain what Ethernet is. Simply, Ethernet is a very common
method of networking computers in a LAN using copper cabling. Capable of providing fast
and constant connections, Ethernet can handle about 10,000,000 bits per second and can
be used with almost any kind of computer.

While that may sound fast to those less familiar with networking, there is a very strong
demand for even higher transmission speeds, which has been realized by the Fast
Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet specifications (IEEE 802.3u and IEEE 802.3z respectively).
These LAN (local area network) standards have raised the Ethernet speed limit from 10
megabits per second (Mbps) to 100Mbps for Fast Ethernet and 1000Mbps for Gigabit
Ethernet with only minimal changes made to the existing cable structure.

The building blocks of today's networks call out for a mixture of legacy 10BASE-T Ethernet
networks and the new protocols. Typically, 10Mbps networks utilize Ethernet switches to
improve the overall efficiency of the Ethernet network. Between Ethernet switches, Fast
Ethernet repeaters are used to connect a group of switches together at the higher 100
Mbps rate.

However, with an increasing number of users running 100Mbps at the desktop, servers
and aggregation points such as switch stacks may require even greater bandwidth. In this
case, a Fast Ethernet backbone switch can be upgraded to a Gigabit Ethernet switch which
supports multiple 100/1000 Mbps switches. High performance servers can be connected
directly to the backbone once it has been upgraded.

Integrating Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet

Many client/server networks suffer from too many clients trying to access the same
server, which creates a bottleneck where the server attaches to the LAN. Fast Ethernet, in
combination with switched Ethernet, can create an optimal cost-effective solution for
avoiding slow networks since most 10/100Mbps components cost about the same as
10Mbps-only devices.

When integrating 100BASE-T into a 10BASE-T network, the only change required from a
wiring standpoint is that the corporate premise distributed wiring system must now
include Category 5 (CAT5) rated twisted pair cable in the areas running 100BASE-T. Once
rewiring is completed, gigabit speeds can also be deployed even more widely throughout
the network using standard CAT5 cabling.

The Fast Ethernet specification calls for two types of transmission schemes over various
wire media. The first is 100BASE-TX, which, from a cabling perspective, is very similar to
10BASE-T. It uses CAT5-rated twisted pair copper cable to connect various hubs, switches
and end-nodes. It also uses an RJ45 jack just like 10BASE-T and the wiring at the
connector is identical. These similarities make 100BASE-TX easier to install and therefore
the most popular form of the Fast Ethernet specification.
The second variation is 100Base-FX which is used primarily to connect hubs and switches
together either between wiring closets or between buildings. 100BASE-FX uses multimode
fiber-optic cable to transport Fast Ethernet traffic.

Gigabit Ethernet specification calls for three types of transmission schemes over various
wire media. Gigabit Ethernet was originally designed as a switched technology and used
fiber for uplinks and connections between buildings. Because of this, in June 1998 the
IEEE approved the Gigabit Ethernet standard over fiber: 1000BASE-LX and 1000BASE-SX.

The next Gigabit Ethernet standardization to come was 1000BASE-T, which is Gigabit
Ethernet over copper. This standard allows one gigabit per second (Gbps) speeds to be
transmitted over CAT5 cable and has made Gigabit Ethernet migration easier and more
cost-effective than ever before.

Rules of the Road

The basic building block for the Fast Ethernet LAN is the Fast Ethernet repeater. The two
types of Fast Ethernet repeaters offered on the market today are:

Class I Repeater -- The Class 1 repeater operates by translating line signals on the
incoming port to a digital signal. This allows the translation between different types of
Fast Ethernet such as 100BASE-TX and 100BASE-FX. A Class I repeater introduces delays
when performing this conversion such that only one repeater can be put in a single Fast
Ethernet LAN segment.

Class II Repeater -- The Class II repeater immediately repeats the signal on an

incoming port to all the ports on the repeater. Very little delay is introduced by this quick
movement of data across the repeater; thus two Class II repeaters are allowed per Fast
Ethernet segment.
Network managers understand the 100 meter distance limitation of 10BASE-T and
100BASE-T Ethernet and make allowances for working within these limitations. At the
higher operating speeds, Fast Ethernet and 1000BASE-T are limited to 100 meters over
CAT5-rated cable. The EIA/TIA cabling standard recommends using no more than 90
meters between the equipment in the wiring closet and the wall connector. This allows
another 10 meters for patch cables between the wall and the desktop computer.

In contrast, a Fast Ethernet network using the 100BASE-FX standard is designed to allow
LAN segments up to 412 meters in length. Even though fiber-optic cable can actually
transmit data greater distances (i.e. 2 Kilometers in FDDI), the 412 meter limit for Fast
Ethernet was created to allow for the round trip times of packet transmission. Typical
100BASE-FX cable specifications call for multimode fiber-optic cable with a 62.5 micron
fiber-optic core and a 125 micron cladding around the outside. This is the most popular
fiber optic cable type used by many of the LAN standards today. Connectors for 100BASE-
FX Fast Ethernet are typically ST connectors (which look like Ethernet BNC connectors).

Many Fast Ethernet vendors are migrating to the newer SC connectors used for ATM over
fiber. A rough implementation guideline to use when determining the maximum distances
in a Fast Ethernet network is the equation: 400 - (r x 95) where r is the number of
repeaters. Network managers need to take into account the distance between the
repeaters and the distance between each node from the repeater. For example, in Figure
1 two repeaters are connected to two Fast Ethernet switches and a few servers.

Figure 1: Fast Ethernet Distance Calculations with Two Repeaters

Maximum Distance Between End nodes:

400-(rx95) where r = 2 (for 2 repeaters)
400-(2x95) = 400-190 = 210 feet, thus
A + B + C = 210 Feet

There is yet another variation of Ethernet called full-duplex Ethernet. Full-duplex Ethernet
enables the connection speed to be doubled by simply adding another pair of wires and
removing collision detection; the Fast Ethernet standard allowed full-duplex Ethernet.
Until then all Ethernet worked in half-duplex mode which meant if there were only two
stations on a segment, both could not transmit simultaneously. With full-duplex operation,
this was now possible. In the terms of Fast Ethernet, essentially 200Mbps of throughput is
the theoretical maximum per full-duplex Fast Ethernet connection. This type of connection
is limited to a node-to-node connection and is typically used to link two Ethernet switches
together.

A Gigabit Ethernet network using the 1000BASE-LX long wavelength option supports
duplex links of up to 550 meters of 62.5 millimeters or 50 millimeters multimode fiber.
1000BASE-LX can also support up to 5 Kilometers of 10 millimeter single-mode fiber. Its
wavelengths range from 1270 millimeters to 1355 millimeters. The 1000BASE-SX is a
short wavelength option that supports duplex links of up to 275 meters using 62.5
millimeters at multimode or up to 550 meters using 55 millimeters of multimode fiber.
Typical wavelengths for this option are in the range of 770 to 860 nanometers.

Maintaining a Quality Network

The CAT5 cable specification is rated up to 100 megahertz (MHz) and meets the
requirement for high speed LAN technologies like Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet. The
EIA/TIA (Electronics industry Association/Telecommunications Industry Association)
formed this cable standard which describes performance the LAN manager can expect
from a strand of twisted pair copper cable. Along with this specification, the committee
formed the EIA/TIA-568 standard named the “Commercial Building Telecommunications
Cabling Standard” to help network managers install a cabling system that would operate
using common LAN types (like Fast Ethernet). The specification defines Near End
Crosstalk (NEXT) and attenuation limits between connectors in a wall plate to the
equipment in the closet. Cable analyzers can be used to ensure accordance with this
specification and thus guarantee a functional Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet network.

The basic strategy of cabling Fast Ethernet systems is to minimize the re-transmission of
packets caused by high bit-error rates. This ratio is calculated using NEXT, ambient noise
and attenuation of the cable.  

Fast Ethernet Migration

 Most network managers have already migrated from 10BASE-T or other Ethernet 10Mbps
variations to higher bandwidth networks. Fast Ethernet ports on Ethernet switches are
used to provide even greater bandwidth between the workgroups at 100Mbps speeds.
New backbone switches have been created to offer support for 1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet
uplinks to handle network traffic. Equipment like Fast Ethernet repeaters will be used in
common areas to group Ethernet switches together with server farms into large 100Mbps
pipes. This is currently the most cost effective method of growing networks within the
average enterprise.

o  

Device Servers Tutorial

Device Server Technology -
Understanding and Imagining its Possibilities

For easy reference, please consult the glossary of terms at the end of this paper.*

The ability to manage virtually any electronic device over a network or the Internet is
changing our world. Companies want to remotely manage, monitor, diagnose and control
their equipment because doing so adds an unprecedented level of intelligence and
efficiency to their businesses. 

With this trend, and as we rely on applications like e-mail and database management for
core business operations, the need for more fully-integrated devices and systems to
monitor and manage the vast amount of data and information becomes increasingly more
important. And, in a world where data and information is expected to be instantaneous,
the ability to manage, monitor and even repair equipment from a distance is extremely
valuable to organizations in every sector.

This need is further emphasized as companies with legacy non-networked equipment

struggle to compete with organizations equipped with advanced networking capabilities
such as machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. There’s no denying that advanced
networking provides an edge to improving overall efficiencies.

This tutorial will provide an overview and give examples of how device servers make it
easy to put just about any piece of electronic equipment on an Ethernet network. It will
highlight the use of external device servers and their ability to provide serial connectivity
for a variety of applications. It will touch on how device networking makes M2M
communication possible and wireless technology even more advanced. Finally, as any
examination of networking technologies requires consideration of data security, this paper
will provide an overview of some the latest encryption technologies available for
connecting devices securely to the network.

Moving from Serial to Ethernet

An Introduction to Device Server Technology

For some devices, the only access available to a network manager or programmer is via a
serial port. The reason for this is partly historical and partly evolutionary. Historically,
Ethernet interfacing has usually been a lengthy development process involving multiple
vendor protocols (some of which have been proprietary) and the interpretation of many
RFCs. Some vendors believed Ethernet was not necessary for their product which was
destined for a centralized computer center - others believed that the development time
and expense required to have an Ethernet interface on the product was not justified.

From the evolutionary standpoint, the networking infrastructure of many sites has only
recently been developed to the point that consistent and perceived stability has been
obtained - as users and management have become comfortable with the performance of
the network, they now focus on how they can maximize corporate productivity in non-IS
capacities.

Device server technology solves this problem by providing an easy and economical way to
connect the serial device to the network. 

Let's use the Lantronix UDS100 Device

Server as an example of how to network a
RAID controller serial port. The user
simply cables the UDS100 's serial port to
the RAID controller's serial port and
attaches the UDS100's Ethernet interface
to the network. Once it has been
configured, the UDS100 makes that serial
port a networked port, with its own IP
address. The user can now connect to the
UDS100 's serial port over a network,
from a PC or terminal emulation device
and perform the same commands as if he
was using a PC directly attached to the RAID controller. Having now become network
enabled, the RAID can be managed or controlled from anywhere on the network or via the
Internet.

The key to network-enabling serial equipment is in a device server’s ability to handle two
separate areas:

1. the connection between the serial device and the device server
2. the connection between the device server and the network (including other network
devices)

Traditional terminal, print and serial servers were developed specifically for connecting
terminals, printers and modems to the network and making those devices available as
networked devices. Now, more modern demands require other devices be network-
enabled, and therefore device servers have become more adaptable in their handling of
attached devices. Additionally, they have become even more powerful and flexible in the
manner in which they provide network connectivity.

Device Servers Defined

A device server is “a specialized network-based hardware device designed to perform a

single or specialized set of functions with client access independent of any operating
system or proprietary protocol.” 
Device servers allow independence from proprietary protocols and the ability to meet a
number of different functions. The RAID controller application discussed above is just one
of many applications where device servers can be used to put any device or "machine" on
the network. 

PCs have been used to network serial devices with some success.  This, however, required
the product with the serial port to have software able to run on the PC, and then have
that application software allow the PC's networking software to access the application.
This task equaled the problems of putting Ethernet on the serial device itself so it wasn’t a
satisfactory solution. 

To be successful, a device server must provide a simple solution for networking a device
and allow access to that device as if it were locally available through its serial port.
Additionally, the device server should provide for the multitude of connection possibilities
that a device may require on both the serial and network sides of a connection. Should
the device be connected all the time to a specific host or PC? Are there multiple hosts or
network devices that may want or need to connect to the newly-networked serial device?
Are there specific requirements for an application which requires the serial device to reject
a connection from the network under certain circumstances? The bottom line is a server
must have both the flexibility to service a multitude of application requirements and be
able to meet all the demands of those applications.

Capitalizing on Lantronix Device Server Expertise and Proven

Solutions

Lantronix is at the forefront of M2M communication technology.  The company is

highly focused on enabling the networking of devices previously not on the network so
they can be accessed and managed remotely.

Lantronix has built on its long history and vast experience as a terminal, print and serial
server technology company to develop more functionality in its servers that “cross the
boundary” of what many would call traditional terminal or print services. Our technology
provides:

 The ability to translate between different protocols to allow non-routable protocols to

be routed
 The ability to allow management connections to single-port servers while they are
processing transactions between their serial port and the network
 A wide variety of options for both serial and network connections including serial
tunneling and automatic host connection make these servers some of the most
sophisticated Ethernet-enabling devices available today.

Ease of Use

As an independent device on the network, device servers are surprisingly easy to manage.
Lantronix has spent years perfecting Ethernet protocol software and its engineers have
provided a wide range of management tools for this device server technology. Serial ports
are ideal vehicles for device management purposes - a simple command set allows easy
configuration. The same command set that can be exercised on the serial port can be
used when connecting via Telnet to a Lantronix device server.
An important feature to remember about the Lantronix Telnet management interface is
that it can actually be run as a second connection while data is being transferred through
the server - this feature allows the user to actually monitor the data traffic on even a
single-port server's serial port connection while active. Lantronix device servers also
support SNMP, the recognized standard for IP management that is used by many large
network for management purposes.

Finally, Lantronix has its own management software utilities which utilize a graphical user
interface providing an easy way to manage Lantronix device servers. In addition, the
servers all have Flash ROMs which can be reloaded in the field with the latest firmware.

Device Servers for a Host of Applications

This section will discuss how device servers are used to better facilitate varying
applications such as:

 Data Acquisition
 M2M
 Wireless Communication/Networking
 Factory/Industrial Automation
 Security Systems
 Bar Code Readers and Point-of-sale Scanners
 Medical Applications

Data Acquisition

Microprocessors have made their way into almost all aspects of human life, from
automobiles to hockey pucks. With so much data available, organizations are challenged
to effectively and efficiently gather and process the information. There are a wide variety
of interfaces to support communication with devices. RS-485 is designed to allow for
multiple devices to be linked by a multidrop network of RS-485 serial devices. This
standard also had the benefit of greater distance than offered by the RS-232/RS-423 and
RS-422 standards.

However, because of the factors previously outlined, these types of devices can further
benefit from being put on an Ethernet network. First, Ethernet networks have a greater
range than serial technologies. Second, Ethernet protocols actually monitor packet traffic
and will indicate when packets are being lost compared to serial technologies which do not
guarantee data integrity.

Lantronix full family of device server products provides the comprehensive support
required for network enabling different serial interfaces. Lantronix provides many device
servers which support RS-485 and allow for easy integration of these types of devices into
the network umbrella. For RS-232 or RS-423 serial devices, they can be used to connect
equipment to the network over either Ethernet or Fast Ethernet.

An example of device server collaboration at work is Lantronix's partnership with Christie

Digital Systems, a leading provider of visual solutions for business, entertainment and
industry. Christie integrates Lantronix SecureBox® secure device server with feature-rich
firmware designed and programmed by Christie for its CCM products. The resulting
product line, called the ChristieNET SecureCCM, provided the encryption security needed
for use in the company’s key markets, which include higher education and government.
Demonstrating a convergence of AV and IT equipment to solve customer needs,
ChristieNET SecureCCM was the first product of its kind to be certified by the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

M2M and Wireless Communications

Two extremely important and useful technologies for communication that depend heavily
on device servers are M2M and wireless networking.

Made possible by device networking technology, M2M enables serial-based devices

throughout a facility to communicate with each other and humans over a Local Area
Network/Wide Area Network (LAN/WAN) or via the Internet. The prominent advantages to
business include:

 Maximized efficiency
 More streamlined operations
 Improved service

Lantronix Device Servers enable M2M

communications either between the
computer and serial device, or from
one serial device to another over the
Internet or Ethernet network using
“serial tunneling.” Using this serial
to Ethernet method, the “tunnel”
can extend across a facility or to
other facilities all over the globe.

M2M technology opens a new world of business intelligence and opportunity for
organizations in virtually every market sector. Made possible through device servers, M2M
offers solutions for equipment manufacturers, for example, who need to control service
costs. Network enabled equipment can be monitored at all times for predictive
maintenance. Often when something is wrong, a simple setting or switch adjustment is all
that is required. When an irregularity is noted, the system can essentially diagnose the
problem and send the corrective instructions. This negates a time-consuming and
potentially expensive service call for a trivial issue. If servicing is required, the technician
leaves knowing exactly what is wrong and with the proper equipment and parts to correct
the problem. Profitability is maximized through better operating efficiencies, minimized
cost overruns and fewer wasted resources.
M2M technology also greatly benefits any organization that cannot afford downtime, such
as energy management facilities where power failures can be catastrophic, or hospitals
who can’t afford interruptions with lives at stake. By proactively monitoring networked-
enabled equipment to ensure it is functioning properly at all times, business can ensure
uptime on critical systems, improve customer service and increase profitability.

Wireless Networking

Wireless networking, allows devices to communicate over the airwaves and without wires
by using standard networking protocols. There are currently a variety of competing
standards available for achieving the benefits of a wireless network. Here is a brief
description of each:

Bluetooth
is a standard that provides short-range wireless connections between
computers, Pocket PCs, and other equipment.

ZigBee
is a proprietary set of communication protocols designed to use small,
low power digital radios based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for
wireless personal area networking.
 802.11
is an IEEE specification for a wireless LAN airlink.

802.11b (or Wi-Fi)

is an industry standard for wireless LANs and supports more users and
operates over longer distances than other standards. However, it
requires more power and storage. 802.11b offers wireless transmission
over short distances at up to 11 megabits per second. When used in
handheld devices, 802.11b provides similar networking capabilities to
devices enabled with Bluetooth.

802.11g
is the most recently approved standard and offers wireless
transmission over short distances at up to 54 megabits per second.
Both 802.11b and 802.11g operate in the 2.4 GHz range and are
therefore compatible.

For more in-depth information, please consult the Lantronix wireless whitepaper which is
available online.

Wireless technology is especially ideal in instances when it would be impractical or cost-

prohibitive for cabling; or in instances where a high level of mobility is required.

Wireless device networking has benefits for all types of organizations. For example, in the
medical field, where reduced staffing, facility closures and cost containment pressures are
just a few of the daily concerns, device networking can assist with process automation
and data security. Routine activities such as collection and dissemination of data, remote
patient monitoring, asset tracking and reducing service costs can be managed quickly and
safely with the use of wireless networked devices. In this environment, Lantronix device
servers can network and manage patient monitoring devices, mobile EKG units, glucose
analyzers, blood analyzers, infusion pumps, ventilators and virtually any other diagnostic
tool with serial capability over the Internet.

Forklift accidents in large warehouses cause millions of dollars in damaged product, health
claims, lost work and equipment repairs each year. To minimize the lost revenue and
increase their profit margin and administrative overhead, “a company” has utilized
wireless networking technology to solve the problem. Using Lantronix serial-to-802.11
wireless device server “the company” wirelessly network-enables a card reader which is
tied to the ignition system of all the forklifts in the warehouse. Each warehouse employee
has an identification card. The forklift operator swipes his ID card before trying to start
the forklift. The information from his card is sent back via wireless network to computer
database and it checks to see if he has proper operator’s license, and that the license is
current. If so, forklift can start. If not – the starter is disabled.

Factory Floor Automation

For shops that are running automated assembly and manufacturing equipment, time is
money. For every minute a machine is idle, productivity drops and the cost of ownership
soars. Many automated factory floor machines have dedicated PCs to control them. In
some cases, handheld PCs are used to reprogram equipment for different functions such
as changing computer numerically controlled (CNC) programs or changing specifications
on a bottling or packaging machine to comply with the needs of other products. These
previously isolated pieces of industrial equipment could be networked to allow them to be
controlled and reprogrammed over the network, saving time and increasing shop
efficiency. For example, from a central location (or actually from anywhere in the world for
that matter) with network connectivity, the machines can be accessed and monitored over
the network. When necessary, new programs can be downloaded to the machine and
software/firmware updates can be installed remotely.

One item of interest is how that input programming is formatted. Since many industrial
and factory automation devices are legacy or proprietary, any number of different data
protocols could be used. Device servers provide the ability to utilize the serial ports on the
equipment for virtually any kind of data transaction.

Lantronix device servers support binary character transmissions. In these situations,

managing the rate of information transfer is imperative to guard against data overflow.
The ability to manage data flow between computers, devices or nodes in a network, so
that data can be handled efficiently is referred to as flow control. Without it, the risk of
data overflow can result in information being lost or needing to be retransmitted.

Lantronix accounts for this need by supporting RTS/CTS flow control on its DB25 and RJ45
ports. Lantronix device servers handle everything from a simple ASCII command file to a
complex binary program that needs to be transmitted to a device.

Security Systems

One area that every organization is concerned about is security. Card readers for access
control are commonplace, and these devices are ideally suited to benefit from being
connected to the network with device server technology. When networked, the cards can
be checked against a centralized database on the system and there are records of all
access within the organization. Newer technology includes badges that can be scanned
from a distance of up to several feet and biometric scanning devices that can identify an
individual by a thumbprint or handprint. Device servers enable these types of devices to
be placed throughout an organization's network and allow them to be effectively managed
by a minimum staff at a central location. They allow the computer controlling the access
control to be located a great distance away from the actual door control mechanism.

An excellent example is how ISONAS Security Systems utilized Lantonix WiPort®

embedded device server to produce the World’s first wireless IP door reader for the access
control and security industry. With ISONAS reader software, network administrators can
directly monitor and control an almost unlimited number of door readers across the
enterprise. The new readers, incorporating Lantronix wireless technology, connect directly
to an IP network and eliminate the need for traditional security control panels and
expensive wiring. The new solutions are easy to install and configure, enabling businesses
to more easily adopt access control, time and attendance or emergency response
technology. What was traditionally a complicated configuration and installation is now as
simple as installing wireless access points on a network.

One more area of security systems that has made great strides is in the area of security
cameras. In some cases, local municipalities are now requesting that they get visual proof
of a security breach before they will send authorities. Device server technology provides
the user with a host of options for how such data can be handled. One option is to have
an open data pipe on a security camera - this allows all data to be viewed as it comes
across from the camera. The device server can be configured so that immediately upon
power-up the serial port attached to the camera will be connected to a dedicated host
system.

Another option is to have the camera transmit only when it has data to send. By
configuring the device server to automatically connect to a particular site when a
character first hits the buffer, data will be transmitted only when it is available.

One last option is available when using the IP protocol - a device server can be configured
to transmit data from one serial device to multiple IP addresses for various recording or
archival concerns. Lantronix device server technology gives the user many options for
tuning the device to meet the specific needs of their application.

Scanning Devices

Device server technology can be effectively applied to scanning devices such as bar code
readers or point-of-sale debit card scanners. When a bar code reader is located in a
remote corner of the warehouse at a receiving dock, a single-port server can link the
reader to the network and provide up-to-the-minute inventory information. A debit card
scanner system can be set up at any educational, commercial or industrial site with
automatic debiting per employee for activities, meals and purchases. A popular
amusement park in the United States utilizes such a system to deter theft or reselling of
partially-used admission tickets.

Medical Applications

The medical field is an area where device server technology can provide great flexibility
and convenience. Many medical organizations now run comprehensive applications
developed specifically for their particular area of expertise. For instance, a group
specializing in orthopedics may have x-ray and lab facilities onsite to save time and
customer effort in obtaining test results.  Connecting all the input terminals, lab devices,
x-ray machines and developing equipment together allows for efficient and effective
service. Many of these more technical devices previously relied upon serial communication
or worse yet, processing being done locally on a PC. Utilizing device server technology
they can all be linked together into one seamless application. And an Internet connection
enables physicians the added advantage of access to immediate information relevant to
patient diagnosis and treatment.

Larger medical labs, where there are hundreds of different devices available for providing
test data, can improve efficiency and lower equipment costs by using device server
technology to replace dedicated PCs at each device. Device servers only cost a fraction of
PCs. And, the cost calculation is not just the hardware alone, but the man-hours required
to create software that would allow a PC-serial-port-based applications program to be
converted into a program linking that information to the PC's network port. Device server
technology resolves this issue by allowing the original applications software to be run on a
networked PC and then use port redirector software to connect up to that device via the
network. This enables the medical facility to transition from a PC at each device and
software development required to network that data, to using only a couple of networked
PCs doing the processing for all of the devices.

Additional Network Security

Of course, with the ability to network devices comes the risk of outsiders obtaining access
to important and confidential information. Security can be realized through various
encryption methods. 

There are two main types of encryption: asymmetric encryption (also known as public-key
encryption) and symmetric encryption. There are many algorithms for encrypting data
based on these types.

AES
AES (Advanced Encryption Standards) is a popular and powerful
encryption standard that has not been broken. Select Lantronix device
servers feature a NIST-certified implementation of AES as specified by
the Federal Information Processing Specification (FIPS-197). This
standard specifies Rijndael as a FIPS-approved symmetric encryption
algorithm that may be used to protect sensitive information.  A
common consideration for device networking devices is that they
support AES and are validated against the standard to demonstrate
that they properly implement the algorithm. It is important that a
validation certificate is issued to the product’s vendor which states that
the implementation has been tested. Lantronix offers several AES
certified devices including the AES Certified SecureBox SDS1100 and
the AES Certified SecureBox SDS2100.

Secure Shell Encryption

Secure Shell (SSH) is a program that provides strong authentication
and secure communications over unsecured channels. It is used as a
replacement for Telnet, rlogin, rsh, and rcp, to log into another
computer over a network, to execute commands in a remote machine,
and to move files from one machine to another. AES is one of the
many encryption algorithms supported by SSH. Once a session key is
 established SSH uses AES to protect data in transit.
Both SSH and AES are extremely important to overall network security
by maintaining strict authentication for protection against intruders as
well as symmetric encryption to protect transmission of dangerous
packets. AES certification is reliable and can be trusted to handle the
highest network security issues.

WEP
Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a security protocol for wireless local
area networks (WLANs) which are defined in the 802.11b standard.
WEP is designed to provide the same level of security as that of a
wired LAN, however LANs provide more security by their inherent
physical structure that can be protected from unauthorized access.
WLANs, which are over radio waves, do not have the same physical
structure and therefore are more vulnerable to tampering. WEP
provides security by encrypting data over radio waves so that it is
protected as it is transmitted from one end point to another.  However,
it has been found that WEP is not as secure as once believed. WEP is
used at the data link and physical layers of the OSI model and does
not offer end-to-end security.

WPA
Supported by many newer devices, Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) is a
Wi-Fi standard that was designed to improve upon the security
features of WEP. WPA technology works with existing Wi-Fi products
that have been enabled with WEP, but WPA includes two improvements
over WEP. The first is improved data encryption via the temporal key
integrity protocol (TKIP), which scrambles keys using a hashing
algorithm and adds an integrity-checking feature to ensure that keys
haven’t been tampered with. The second is user authentication through
the extensible authentication protocol (EAP). EAP is built on a secure
public-key encryption system, ensuring that only authorized network
users have access. EAP is generally missing from WEP, which regulates
access to a wireless network based on the computer’s hardware-
specific MAC Address. Since this information can be easily stolen, there
is an inherent security risk in relying on WEP encryption alone. 

Incorporating Encryption with Device Servers

In the simplest connection scheme where two device servers are set up as a serial tunnel,
no encryption application programming is required since both device servers can perform
the encryption automatically. However, in the case where a host-based application is
interacting with the serial device through its own network connection, modification of the
application is required to support data encryption.

Applications Abound

While this paper provides a quick snapshot of device servers at work in a variety of
applications, it should be noted that this is only a sampling of the many markets where
these devices could be used. With the ever-increasing requirement to manage, monitor,
diagnose and control many and different forms of equipment and as device server
technology continues to evolve, the applications are literally only limited by the
imagination.

 
 Glossary of terms *
Serial server
traditionally, a unit used for connecting a modem to the network for
shared access among users.

Terminal server
traditionally, a unit that connects asynchronous devices such as
terminals, printers, hosts, and modems to a LAN or WAN.

Device server
a specialized network-based hardware device designed to perform a
single or specialized set of functions with client access independent of
any operating system or proprietary protocol.

Print server
a host device that connects and manages shared printers over a
network.

Console server
software that allows the user to connect consoles from various
equipment into the serial ports of a single device and gain access to
these consoles from anywhere on the network.

Console manager
a unit or program that allows the user to remotely manage serial
devices, including servers, switches, routers and telecom equipment.
 

Network Switching Tutorial

Network Switching

Switches can be a valuable asset to networking. Overall, they can increase the capacity
and speed of your network. However, switching should not be seen as a cure-all for
network issues. Before incorporating network switching, you must first ask yourself two
important questions: First, how can you tell if your network will benefit from switching?
Second, how do you add switches to your network design to provide the most benefit?

This tutorial is written to answer these questions. Along the way, we'll describe how
switches work, and how they can both harm and benefit your networking strategy. We’ll
also discuss different network types, so you can profile your network and gauge the
potential benefit of network switching for your environment.

What is a Switch?

Switches occupy the same place in the network as hubs. Unlike hubs, switches examine
each packet and process it accordingly rather than simply repeating the signal to all ports.
Switches map the Ethernet addresses of the nodes residing on each network segment and
then allow only the necessary traffic to pass through the switch. When a packet is
received by the switch, the switch examines the destination and source hardware
addresses and compares them to a table of network segments and addresses. If the
segments are the same, the packet is dropped or "filtered"; if the segments are different,
then the packet is "forwarded" to the proper segment. Additionally, switches prevent bad
or misaligned packets from spreading by not forwarding them.

Filtering packets and regenerating forwarded packets enables switching technology to split
a network into separate collision domains. The regeneration of packets allows for greater
distances and more nodes to be used in the total network design, and dramatically lowers
the overall collision rates. In switched networks, each segment is an independent collision
domain. This also allows for parallelism, meaning up to one-half of the computers
connected to a switch can send data at the same time. In shared networks all nodes
reside in a single shared collision domain.

Easy to install, most switches are self learning. They determine the Ethernet addresses in
use on each segment, building a table as packets are passed through the switch. This
"plug and play" element makes switches an attractive alternative to hubs.

Switches can connect different network types (such as Ethernet and Fast Ethernet) or
networks of the same type. Many switches today offer high-speed links, like Fast Ethernet,
which can be used to link the switches together or to give added bandwidth to important
servers that get a lot of traffic. A network composed of a number of switches linked
together via these fast uplinks is called a "collapsed backbone" network.

Dedicating ports on switches to individual nodes is another way to speed access for critical
computers. Servers and power users can take advantage of a full segment for one node,
so some networks connect high traffic nodes to a dedicated switch port.

Full duplex is another method to increase bandwidth to dedicated workstations or servers.

To use full duplex, both network interface cards used in the server or workstation and the
switch must support full duplex operation. Full duplex doubles the potential bandwidth on
that link.

Network Congestion

As more users are added to a shared

network or as applications requiring more data are added, performance deteriorates. This
is because all users on a shared network are competitors for the Ethernet bus. A
moderately loaded 10 Mbps Ethernet network is able to sustain utilization of 35 percent
and throughput in the neighborhood of 2.5 Mbps after accounting for packet overhead,
inter-packet gaps and collisions. A moderately loaded Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet
shares 25 Mbps or 250 Mbps of real data in the same circumstances. With shared Ethernet
and Fast Ethernet, the likelihood of collisions increases as more nodes and/or more traffic
is added to the shared collision domain.
Ethernet itself is a shared media, so there are rules for sending packets to avoid conflicts
and protect data integrity. Nodes on an Ethernet network send packets when they
determine the network is not in use. It is possible that two nodes at different locations
could try to send data at the same time. When both PCs are transferring a packet to the
network at the same time, a collision will result. Both packets are retransmitted, adding to
the traffic problem. Minimizing collisions is a crucial element in the design and operation
of networks. Increased collisions are often the result of too many users or too much traffic
on the network, which results in a great deal of contention for network bandwidth. This
can slow the performance of the network from the user’s point of view. Segmenting,
where a network is divided into different pieces joined together logically with switches or
routers, reduces congestion in an overcrowded network by eliminating the shared collision
domain.

Collision rates measure the percentage of packets that are collisions. Some collisions are
inevitable, with less than 10 percent common in well-running networks.

The Factors Affecting Network

Efficiency
 Amount of traffic
 Number of nodes
 Size of packets
 Network diameter

Measuring Network Efficiency

 Average to peak load deviation
 Collision Rate
 Utilization Rate

Utilization rate is another widely accessible statistic about the health of a network. This
statistic is available in Novell's console monitor and WindowsNT performance monitor as
well as any optional LAN analysis software. Utilization in an average network above 35
percent indicates potential problems. This 35 percent utilization is near optimum, but
some networks experience higher or lower utilization optimums due to factors such as
packet size and peak load deviation.

A switch is said to work at "wire speed" if it has enough processing power to handle full
Ethernet speed at minimum packet sizes. Most switches on the market are well ahead of
network traffic capabilities supporting the full "wire speed" of Ethernet, 14,480 pps
(packets per second), and Fast Ethernet, 148,800 pps.

Routers

Routers work in a manner similar to switches and bridges in that they filter out network
traffic. Rather than doing so by packet addresses, they filter by specific protocol. Routers
were born out of the necessity for dividing networks logically instead of physically. An IP
router can divide a network into various subnets so that only traffic destined for particular
IP addresses can pass between segments. Routers recalculate the checksum, and rewrite
the MAC header of every packet. The price paid for this type of intelligent forwarding and
filtering is usually calculated in terms of latency, or the delay that a packet experiences
inside the router. Such filtering takes more time than that exercised in a switch or bridge
which only looks at the Ethernet address. In more complex networks network efficiency
can be improved. An additional benefit of routers is their automatic filtering of broadcasts,
but overall they are complicated to setup.

Switch Benefits
 Isolates traffic, relieving congestion
 Separates collision domains, reducing collisions
 Segments, restarting distance and repeater
rules

Switch Costs
 Price: currently 3 to 5 times the price of a
hub
 Packet processing time is longer than in a hub
 Monitoring the network is more complicated

General Benefits of Network Switching

Switches replace hubs in networking designs, and they are more expensive. So why is the
desktop switching market doubling ever year with huge numbers sold? The price of
switches is declining precipitously, while hubs are a mature technology with small price
declines. This means that there is far less difference between switch costs and hub costs
than there used to be, and the gap is narrowing.

Since switches are self learning, they are as easy to install as a hub. Just plug them in
and go. And they operate on the same hardware layer as a hub, so there are no protocol
issues.

There are two reasons for switches being included in network designs. First, a switch
breaks one network into many small networks so the distance and repeater limitations are
restarted. Second, this same segmentation isolates traffic and reduces collisions relieving
network congestion. It is very easy to identify the need for distance and repeater
extension, and to understand this benefit of network switching. But the second benefit,
relieving network congestion, is hard to identify and harder to understand the degree by
which switches will help performance. Since all switches add small latency delays to
packet processing, deploying switches unnecessarily can actually slow down network
performance. So the next section pertains to the factors affecting the impact of switching
to congested networks.

Network Switching

The benefits of switching vary from network to network. Adding a switch for the first time
has different implications than increasing the number of switched ports already installed.
Understanding traffic patterns is very important to network switching - the goal being to
eliminate (or filter) as much traffic as possible. A switch installed in a location where it
forwards almost all the traffic it receives will help much less than one that filters most of
the traffic.

Networks that are not congested can actually be negatively impacted by adding switches.
Packet processing delays, switch buffer limitations, and the retransmissions that can
result sometimes slows performance compared with the hub based alternative. If your
network is not congested, don't replace hubs with switches. How can you tell if
performance problems are the result of network congestion? Measure utilization factors
and collision rates.

Good Candidates for Performance Boosts from

Switching
 Utilization more than 35%
 Collision rates more than 10%

Utilization load is the amount of total traffic as a percent of the theoretical

maximum for the network type, 10 Mbps in Ethernet, 100 Mbps in Fast
Ethernet. The collision rate is the number of packets with collisions as a
percentage of total packages

Network response times (the user-visible part of network performance) suffers as the load
on the network increases, and under heavy loads small increases in user traffic often
results in significant decreases in performance. This is similar to automobile freeway
dynamics, in that increasing loads results in increasing throughput up to a point, then
further increases in demand results in rapid deterioration of true throughput. In Ethernet,
collisions increase as the network is loaded, and this causes retransmissions and increases
in load which cause even more collisions. The resulting network overload slows traffic
considerably.

Using network utilities found on most server operating systems network managers can
determine utilization and collision rates. Both peak and average statistics should be
considered.

Replacing a Central Hub with a Switch

This switching opportunity is typified by a fully shared network, where many users are
connected in a cascading hub architecture. The two main impacts of switching will be
faster network connection to the server(s) and the isolation of non-relevant traffic from
each segment. As the network bottleneck is eliminated performance grows until a new
system bottleneck is encountered - such as maximum server performance.

Adding Switches to a Backbone Switched Network

Congestion on a switched network can usually be relieved by adding more switched ports,
and increasing the speed of these ports. Segments experiencing congestion are identified
by their utilization and collision rates, and the solution is either further segmentation or
faster connections. Both Fast Ethernet and Ethernet switch ports are added further down
the tree structure of the network to increase performance.

Designing for Maximum Benefit

Changes in network design tend to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary-rarely is a
network manager able to design a network completely from scratch. Usually, changes are
made slowly with an eye toward preserving as much of the usable capital investment as
possible while replacing obsolete or outdated technology with new equipment.

Fast Ethernet is very easy to add to most networks. A switch or bridge allows Fast
Ethernet to connect to existing Ethernet infrastructures to bring speed to critical links. The
faster technology is used to connect switches to each other, and to switched or shared
servers to ensure the avoidance of bottlenecks.

Many client/server networks suffer from too many clients trying to access the same server
which creates a bottleneck where the server attaches to the LAN. Fast Ethernet, in
combination with switched Ethernet, creates the perfect cost-effective solution for
avoiding slow client server networks by allowing the server to be placed on a fast port.

Distributed processing also benefits from Fast Ethernet and switching. Segmentation of
the network via switches brings big performance boosts to distributed traffic networks,
and the switches are commonly connected via a Fast Ethernet backbone.

Good Candidates for Performance Boosts from

Switching
 Important to know network demand per node
 Try to group users with the nodes they communicate with
most often on the same segment
 Look for departmental traffic patterns
 Avoid switch bottlenecks with fast uplinks
 Move users switch between segments in an iterative
process until all nodes seeing less than 35% utilization

Client/Server Traffic Distributed Traffic

Advanced Switching Technology Issues

There are some technology issues with switching that do not affect 95% of all networks.
Major switch vendors and the trade publications are promoting new competitive
technologies, so some of these concepts are discussed here.

Managed or Unmanaged

Management provides benefits in many networks. Large networks with mission critical
applications are managed with many sophisticated tools, using SNMP to monitor the
health of devices on the network. Networks using SNMP or RMON (an extension to SNMP
that provides much more data while using less network bandwidth to do so) will either
manage every device, or just the more critical areas. VLANs are another benefit to
management in a switch. A VLAN allows the network to group nodes into logical LANs that
behave as one network, regardless of physical connections. The main benefit is managing
broadcast and multicast traffic. An unmanaged switch will pass broadcast and multicast
packets through to all ports. If the network has logical grouping that are different from
physical groupings then a VLAN-based switch may be the best bet for traffic optimization.

Another benefit to management in the switches is Spanning Tree Algorithm. Spanning

Tree allows the network manager to design in redundant links, with switches attached in
loops. This would defeat the self learning aspect of switches, since traffic from one node
would appear to originate on different ports. Spanning Tree is a protocol that allows the
switches to coordinate with each other so that traffic is only carried on one of the
redundant links (unless there is a failure, then the backup link is automatically activated).
Network managers with switches deployed in critical applications may want to have
redundant links. In this case management is necessary. But for the rest of the networks
an unmanaged switch would do quite well, and is much less expensive.

Store-and-Forward vs. Cut-Through

LAN switches come in two basic architectures, cut-through and store-and-forward. Cut-
through switches only examine the destination address before forwarding it on to its
destination segment. A store-and-forward switch, on the other hand, accepts and
analyzes the entire packet before forwarding it to its destination. It takes more time to
examine the entire packet, but it allows the switch to catch certain packet errors and
collisions and keep them from propagating bad packets through the network.

Today, the speed of store-and-forward switches has caught up with cut-through switches
to the point where the difference between the two is minimal. Also, there are a large
number of hybrid switches available that mix both cut-through and store-and-forward
architectures.

Blocking vs. Non-Blocking Switches

Take a switch's specifications and add up all the ports at theoretical maximum speed, then
you have the theoretical sum total of a switch's throughput. If the switching bus, or
switching components cannot handle the theoretical total of all ports the switch is
considered a "blocking switch". There is debate whether all switches should be designed
non-blocking, but the added costs of doing so are only reasonable on switches designed to
work in the largest network backbones. For almost all applications, a blocking switch that
has an acceptable and reasonable throughput level will work just fine.

Consider an eight port 10/100 switch. Since each port can theoretically handle 200 Mbps
(full duplex) there is a theoretical need for 1600 Mbps, or 1.6 Gbps. But in the real world
each port will not exceed 50% utilization, so a 800 Mbps switching bus is adequate.
Consideration of total throughput versus total ports demand in the real world loads
provides validation that the switch can handle the loads of your network.
Switch Buffer Limitations

As packets are processed in the switch, they are held in buffers. If the destination
segment is congested, the switch holds on to the packet as it waits for bandwidth to
become available on the crowded segment. Buffers that are full present a problem. So
some analysis of the buffer sizes and strategies for handling overflows is of interest for
the technically inclined network designer.

In real world networks, crowded segments cause many problems, so their impact on
switch consideration is not important for most users, since networks should be designed
to eliminate crowded, congested segments. There are two strategies for handling full
buffers. One is "backpressure flow control" which sends packets back upstream to the
source nodes of packets that find a full buffer. This compares to the strategy of simply
dropping the packet, and relying on the integrity features in networks to retransmit
automatically. One solution spreads the problem in one segment to other segments,
propagating the problem. The other solution causes retransmissions, and that resulting
increase in load is not optimal. Neither strategy solves the problem, so switch vendors use
large buffers and advise network managers to design switched network topologies to
eliminate the source of the problem - congested segments.

Layer 3 Switching

A hybrid device is the latest improvement in internetworking technology. Combining the

packet handling of routers and the speed of switching, these multilayer switches operate
on both layer 2 and layer 3 of the OSI network model. The performance of this class of
switch is aimed at the core of large enterprise networks. Sometimes called routing
switches or IP switches, multilayer switches look for common traffic flows, and switch
these flows on the hardware layer for speed. For traffic outside the normal flows, the
multilayer switch uses routing functions. This keeps the higher overhead routing functions
only where it is needed, and strives for the best handling strategy for each network
packet.

Many vendors are working on high end multilayer switches, and the technology is
definitely a "work in process". As networking technology evolves, multilayer switches are
likely to replace routers in most large networks.