UNIT -III

Network Layer Design Issues:

1. Store-and-forward packet switching
2. Services provided to transport layer
3. Implementation of connectionless service
4. Implementation of connection-oriented service
5. Comparison of virtual-circuit and datagram networks

1 Store-and-forward packet switching

A host with a packet to send transmits it to the nearest router, either on its own LAN or over a
point-to-point link to the ISP. The packet is stored there until it has fully arrived and the link
has finished its processing by verifying the checksum. Then it is forwarded to the next router
along the path until it reaches the destination host, where it is delivered. This mechanism is
store-and-forward packet switching.
2 Services provided to transport layer
The network layer provides services to the transport layer at the network layer/transport layer
interface. The services need to be carefully designed with the following goals in mind:
1. Services independent of router technology.
2. Transport layer shielded from number, type, topology of routers.
3. Network addresses available to transport layer use uniform numbering plan
– even across LANs and WANs
3 Implementation of connectionless service

If connectionless service is offered, packets are injected into the network individually and
routed independently of each other. No advance setup is needed. In this context, the packets
are frequently called datagrams (in analogy with telegrams) and the network is called a
datagram network.

A’s table (initially) A’s table (later) C’s Table E’s Table

Let us assume for this example that the message is four times longer than the maximum packet
size, so the network layer has to break it into four packets, 1, 2, 3, and 4, and send each of them
in turn to router A.
Every router has an internal table telling it where to send packets for each of the possible
destinations. Each table entry is a pair(destination and the outgoing line). Only directly
connected lines can be used.
A’s initial routing table is shown in the figure under the label ‘‘initially.’’
At A, packets 1, 2, and 3 are stored briefly, having arrived on the incoming link. Then each
packet is forwarded according to A’s table, onto the outgoing link to C within a new frame.
Packet 1 is then forwarded to E and then to F.
However, something different happens to packet 4. When it gets to A it is sent to router B, even
though it is also destined for F. For some reason (traffic jam along ACE path), A decided to
send packet 4 via a different route than that of the first three packets. Router A updated its
routing table, as shown under the label ‘‘later.’’
The algorithm that manages the tables and makes the routing decisions is called the routing
algorithm.
4 Implementation of connection-oriented service

A’s table C’s Table E’s Table

If connection-oriented service is used, a path from the source router all the way to the
destination router must be established before any data packets can be sent. This connection is
called a VC (virtual circuit), and the network is called a virtual-circuit network

When a connection is established, a route from the source machine to the destination machine
is chosen as part of the connection setup and stored in tables inside the routers. That route is
used for all traffic flowing over the connection, exactly the same way that the telephone system
works. When the connection is released, the virtual circuit is also terminated. With connection-
oriented service, each packet carries an identifier telling which virtual circuit it belongs to.

As an example, consider the situation shown in Figure. Here, host H1 has established
connection 1 with host H2. This connection is remembered as the first entry in each of the
routing tables. The first line of A’s table says that if a packet bearing connection identifier 1
comes in from H1, it is to be sent to router C and given connection identifier 1. Similarly, the
first entry at C routes the packet to E, also with connection identifier 1.
Now let us consider what happens if H3 also wants to establish a connection to H2. It chooses
connection identifier 1 (because it is initiating the connection and this is its only connection)
and tells the network to establish the virtual circuit.
This leads to the second row in the tables. Note that we have a conflict here because although A
can easily distinguish connection 1 packets from H1 from connection 1 packets from H3, C
cannot do this. For this reason, A assigns a different connection identifier to the outgoing traffic
for the second connection. Avoiding conflicts of this kind is why routers need the ability to
replace connection identifiers in outgoing packets.
In some contexts, this process is called label switching. An example of a connection-oriented
network service is MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching).

5 Comparison of virtual-circuit and datagram networks

Routing Algorithms
The main function of NL (Network Layer) is routing packets from the source machine to the
destination machine.
There are two processes inside router:
a) One of them handles each packet as it arrives, looking up the outgoing line to use for it in
the routing table. This process is forwarding.
b) The other process is responsible for filling in and updating the routing tables. That is where
the routing algorithm comes into play. This process is routing.

Regardless of whether routes are chosen independently for each packet or only when new
connections are established, certain properties are desirable in a routing algorithm correctness,
simplicity, robustness, stability, fairness, optimality
 Routing algorithms can be grouped into two major classes:
1) nonadaptive (Static Routing)
2) adaptive. (Dynamic Routing)

Nonadaptive algorithm do not base their routing decisions on measurements or estimates of the
current traffic and topology. Instead, the choice of the route to use to get from I to J is computed
in advance, off line, and downloaded to the routers when the network is booted. This procedure
is sometimes called static routing.

Adaptive algorithm, in contrast, change their routing decisions to reflect changes in the
topology, and usually the traffic as well.
Adaptive algorithms differ in
1) Where they get their information (e.g., locally, from adjacent routers, or from all routers),
2) When they change the routes (e.g., every ∆T sec, when the load changes or when the
topology changes), and
3) What metric is used for optimization (e.g., distance, number of hops, or estimated transit
time).
This procedure is called dynamic routing

Different Routing Algorithms

• Optimality principle
• Shortest path algorithm
• Flooding
• Distance vector routing
• Link state routing
• Hierarchical Routing

The Optimality Principle

One can make a general statement about optimal routes without regard to network topology or
traffic. This statement is known as the optimality principle.
It states that if router J is on the optimal path from router I to router K, then the optimal path
from J to K also falls along the same
As a direct consequence of the optimality principle, we can see that the set of optimal routes
from all sources to a given destination form a tree rooted at the destination. Such a tree is called
a sink tree. The goal of all routing algorithms is to discover and use the sink trees for all routers
 (a) A network. (b) A sink tree for router B.

Shortest Path Routing (Dijkstra’s)

The idea is to build a graph of the subnet, with each node of the graph representing a router and
each arc of the graph representing a communication line or link.
To choose a route between a given pair of routers, the algorithm just finds the shortest path
between them on the graph
1. Start with the local node (router) as the root of the tree. Assign a cost of 0 to this node and
make it the first permanent node.
2. Examine each neighbor of the node that was the last permanent node.
3. Assign a cumulative cost to each node and make it tentative
4. Among the list of tentative nodes
a. Find the node with the smallest cost and make it Permanent
b. If a node can be reached from more than one route then select the route with the
shortest cumulative cost.
5. Repeat steps 2 to 4 until every node becomes permanent
Flooding
• Another static algorithm is flooding, in which every incoming packet is sent out on every
outgoing line except the one it arrived on.
• Flooding obviously generates vast numbers of duplicate packets, in fact, an infinite number
unless some measures are taken to damp the process.
• One such measure is to have a hop counter contained in the header of each packet, which is
decremented at each hop, with the packet being discarded when the counter reaches zero.
Ideally, the hop counter should be initialized to the length of the path from source to
destination.
• A variation of flooding that is slightly more practical is selective flooding. In this algorithm
the routers do not send every incoming packet out on every line, only on those lines that are
going approximately in the right direction.
• Flooding is not practical in most applications.

Intra- and Inter domain Routing

An autonomous system (AS) is a group of networks and routers under the authority of a single
administration.
Routing inside an autonomous system is referred to as intra domain routing. (DISTANCE
VECTOR, LINK STATE)
Routing between autonomous systems is referred to as inter domain routing. (PATH VECTOR)
Each autonomous system can choose one or more intra domain routing protocols to handle
routing inside the autonomous system. However, only one inter domain routing protocol
handles routing between autonomous systems.

Distance Vector Routing

In distance vector routing, the least-cost route between any two nodes is the route with
minimum distance. In this protocol, as the name implies, each node maintains a vector (table)
of minimum distances to every node.

Mainly 3 things in this

Initialization
Sharing
Updating

Initialization
Each node can know only the distance between itself and its immediate neighbors, those
directly connected to it. So for the moment, we assume that each node can send a message to
the immediate neighbors and find the distance between itself and these neighbors. Below fig
shows the initial tables for each node. The distance for any entry that is not a neighbor is
marked as infinite (unreachable).
Initialization of tables in distance vector routing

Sharing
The whole idea of distance vector routing is the sharing of information between neighbors.
Although node A does not know about node E, node C does. So if node C shares its routing
table with A, node A can also know how to reach node E. On the other hand, node C does not
know how to reach node D, but node A does. If node A shares its routing table with node C,
node C also knows how to reach node D. In other words, nodes A and C, as immediate
neighbors, can improve their routing tables if they help each other.
NOTE: In distance vector routing, each node shares its routing table with its immediate
neighbors periodically and when there is a change

Updating
When a node receives a two-column table from a neighbor, it needs to update its routing
table. Updating takes three steps:
1. The receiving node needs to add the cost between itself and the sending node to each value in
the second column. (x+y)
2. If the receiving node uses information from any row. The sending node is the next node in
the route.
3. The receiving node needs to compare each row of its old table with the corresponding row of
the modified version of the received table.
a. If the next-node entry is different, the receiving node chooses the row with the
smaller cost. If there is a tie, the old one is kept.
b. If the next-node entry is the same, the receiving node chooses the new row.
For example, suppose node C has previously advertised a route to node X with distance 3.
Suppose that now there is no path between C and X; node C now advertises this route with a
distance of infinity. Node A must not ignore this value even though its old entry is smaller. The
old route does not exist anymore. The new route has a distance of infinity.

Updating in distance vector routing

Final Diagram
When to Share
The question now is, When does a node send its partial routing table (only two columns) to all
its immediate neighbors? The table is sent both periodically and when there is a change in the
table.
Periodic Update A node sends its routing table, normally every 30 s, in a periodic update. The
period depends on the protocol that is using distance vector routing.
Triggered Update A node sends its two-column routing table to its neighbors anytime there is a
change in its routing table. This is called a triggered update. The change can result from the
following.
1. A node receives a table from a neighbor, resulting in changes in its own table after updating.
2. A node detects some failure in the neighboring links which results in a distance change to
infinity.

Two-node instability

Three-node instability

SOLUTIONS FOR INSTABILITY

1. Defining Infinity: redefine infinity to a smaller number, such as 100. For our previous
scenario, the system will be stable in less than 20 updates. As a matter of fact, most
implementations of the distance vector protocol define the distance between each node to
 be 1 and define 16 as infinity. However, this means that the distance vector routing cannot be
used in large systems. The size of the network, in each direction, cannot exceed 15 hops.

2. Split Horizon: In this strategy, instead of flooding the table through each interface, each
node sends only part of its table through each interface. If, according to its table, node B
thinks that the optimum route to reach X is via A, it does not need to advertise this piece of
information to A; the information has come from A (A already knows). Taking information
from node A, modifying it, and sending it back to node A creates the confusion. In our
scenario, node B eliminates the last line of its routing table before it sends it to A. In this
case, node A keeps the value of infinity as the distance to X. Later when node A sends its
routing table to B, node B also corrects its routing table. The system becomes stable after the
first update: both node A and B know that X is not reachable.

3. Split Horizon and Poison Reverse Using the split horizon strategy has one drawback.
Normally, the distance vector protocol uses a timer, and if there is no news about a route, the
node deletes the route from its table. When node B in the previous scenario eliminates the
route to X from its advertisement to A, node A cannot guess that this is due to the split
horizon strategy (the source of information was A) or because B has not received any news
about X recently. The split horizon strategy can be combined with the poison reverse
strategy. Node B can still advertise the value for X, but if the source of information is A, it
can replace the distance with infinity as a warning: "Do not use this value; what I know
about this route comes from you."

The Count-to-Infinity Problem

Link State Routing
Link state routing is based on the assumption that, although the global knowledge about the
topology is not clear, each node has partial knowledge: it knows the state (type, condition, and
cost) of its links. In other words, the whole topology can be compiled from the partial
knowledge of each node

Building Routing Tables

1. Creation of the states of the links by each node, called the link state packet (LSP).
2. Dissemination of LSPs to every other router, called flooding, in an efficient and reliable way.
3. Formation of a shortest path tree for each node.
4. Calculation of a routing table based on the shortest path tree

I. Creation of Link State Packet (LSP) A link state packet can carry a large amount of
information. For the moment, we assume that it carries a minimum amount of data: the node
identity, the list of links, a sequence number, and age. The first two, node identity and the
list of links, are needed to make the topology. The third, sequence number, facilitates
flooding and distinguishes new LSPs from old ones. The fourth, age, prevents old LSPs from
remaining in the domain for a long time.
LSPs are generated on two occasions:
1. When there is a change in the topology of the domain
2. on a periodic basis: The period in this case is much longer compared to distance vector.
The timer set for periodic dissemination is normally in the range of 60 min or 2 h based on
the implementation. A longer period ensures that flooding does not create too much traffic
on the network.
II. Flooding of LSPs: After a node has prepared an LSP, it must be disseminated to all
other nodes, not only to its neighbors. The process is called flooding and based on the
following
1. The creating node sends a copy of the LSP out of each interface
 2. A node that receives an LSP compares it with the copy it may already have. If the
newly arrived LSP is older than the one it has (found by checking the sequence number),
it discards the LSP. If it is newer, the node does the following:
a. It discards the old LSP and keeps the new one.
b. It sends a copy of it out of each interface except the one from which the packet
arrived. This guarantees that flooding stops somewhere in the domain (where a node has
only one interface).
III. Formation of Shortest Path Tree: Dijkstra Algorithm
A shortest path tree is a tree in which the path between the root and every other node is the
shortest.
The Dijkstra algorithm creates a shortest path tree from a graph. The algorithm divides the
nodes into two sets: tentative and permanent. It finds the neighbors of a current node, makes
them tentative, examines them, and if they pass the criteria, makes them permanent.
IV. Calculation of a routing table
routing table for node A

Path Vector Routing

Distance vector and link state routing are both intra domain routing protocols. They can be used
inside an autonomous system, but not between autonomous systems. These two protocols are
not suitable for inter domain routing mostly because of scalability. Both of these routing
protocols become intractable when the domain of operation becomes large. Distance vector
routing is subject to instability in the domain of operation. Link state routing needs a
 huge amount of resources to calculate routing tables. It also creates heavy traffic because of
flooding. There is a need for a third routing protocol which we call path vector routing.

Path vector routing proved to be useful for inter domain routing. The principle of path vector
routing is similar to that of distance vector routing. In path vector routing, we assume that
there is one node (there can be more, but one is enough for our conceptual discussion) in each
AS that acts on behalf of the entire AS. Let us call it the speaker node. The speaker node in an
AS creates a routing table and advertises it to speaker nodes in the neighboring ASs. The idea is
the same as for distance vector routing except that only speaker nodes in each AS can
communicate with each other. However, what is advertised is different. A speaker node
advertises the path, not the metric of the nodes, in its autonomous system or other autonomous
systems

Initialization
Initial routing tables in path vector routing

Sharing
Just as in distance vector routing, in path vector routing, a speaker in an autonomous system shares
its table with immediate neighbors. In Figure, node A1 shares its table with nodes B1
and C1. Node C1 shares its table with nodes D1, B1, and A1. Node B1 shares its table with C1
and A1. Node D1 shares its table with C1.

Updating When a speaker node receives a two-column table from a neighbor, it updates its own
table by adding the nodes that are not in its routing table and adding its own autonomous system
and the autonomous system that sent the table. After a while each speaker has a table and knows
how to reach each node in other Ass
a) Loop prevention. The instability of distance vector routing and the creation of loops can be
avoided in path vector routing. When a router receives a message, it checks to see if its AS is
in the path list to the destination. If it is, looping is involved and the message is ignored.
b) Policy routing. Policy routing can be easily implemented through path vector routing.
When a router receives a message, it can check the path. If one of the AS listed in the path is
against its policy, it can ignore that path and that destination. It does not update its routing
table with this path, and it does not send this message to its neighbors.
c) Optimum path. What is the optimum path in path vector routing? We are looking for a path
to a destination that is the best for the organization that runs the AS. One system may use
RIP, which defines hop count as the metric; another may use OSPF with minimum delay
defined as the metric. In our previous figure, each AS may have more than one path to a
destination. For example, a path from AS4 to ASI can be AS4-AS3-AS2-AS1, or it can be
AS4- AS3-ASI. For the tables, we chose the one that had the smaller number of ASs, but
this is not always the case. Other criteria, such as security, safety, and reliability, can also be
applied
Hierarchical Routing:
As networks grow in size, the router routing tables grow proportionally. Not only is router
memory consumed by ever-increasing tables, but more CPU time is needed to scan them and
more bandwidth is needed to send status reports about them.
At a certain point, the network may grow to the point where it is no longer feasible for every
router to have an entry for every other router, so the routing will have to be done hierarchically,
as it is in the telephone network.
When hierarchical routing is used, the routers are divided into what we will call regions. Each
router knows all the details about how to route packets to destinations within its own region but
knows nothing about the internal structure of other regions.
For huge networks, a two-level hierarchy may be insufficient; it may be necessary to group the
regions into clusters, the clusters into zones, the zones into groups, and so on, until we run out
of names for aggregations

When a single network becomes very large, an interesting question is ‘‘how many levels
should the hierarchy have?’’
For example, consider a network with 720 routers. If there is no hierarchy, each router needs 720
routing table entries.
If the network is partitioned into 24 regions of 30 routers each, each router needs 30 local entries
plus 23 remote entries for a total of 53 entries.
If a three-level hierarchy is chosen, with 8 clusters each containing 9 regions of 10 routers, each
router needs 10 entries for local routers, 8 entries for routing to other regions within its own
cluster, and 7 entries for distant clusters, for a total of 25 entries
Kamoun and Kleinrock (1979) discovered that the optimal number of levels for an N router
network is ln N, requiring a total of e ln N entries per router

CONGESTION CONTROL ALGORITHMS:

Too many packets present in (a part of) the network causes packet delay and loss that degrades
performance. This situation is called congestion.
The network and transport layers share the responsibility for handling congestion. Since
congestion occurs within the network, it is the network layer that directly experiences it and
must ultimately determine what to do with the excess packets.
However, the most effective way to control congestion is to reduce the load that the transport
layer is placing on the network. This requires the network and transport layers to work together.
In this chapter we will look at the network aspects of congestion.

When too much traffic is offered, congestion sets in and performance degrades sharply

Above Figure depicts the onset of congestion. When the number of packets hosts send into the
network is well within its carrying capacity, the number delivered is proportional to the number
sent. If twice as many are sent, twice as many are delivered. However, as the offered load
approaches the carrying capacity, bursts of traffic occasionally fill up the buffers inside routers
and some packets are lost. These lost packets consume some of the capacity, so the number of
delivered packets falls below the ideal curve. The network is now congested. Unless the
network is well designed, it may experience a congestion collapse
Difference between congestion control and flow control:
Congestion control has to do with making sure the network is able to carry the offered traffic. It
is a global issue, involving the behavior of all the hosts and routers.
Flow control, in contrast, relates to the traffic between a particular sender and a particular
receiver. Its job is to make sure that a fast sender cannot continually transmit data faster than the
receiver is able to absorb it.
To see the difference between these two concepts, consider a network made up of 100-Gbps
fiber optic links on which a supercomputer is trying to force feed a large file to a personal
computer that is capable of handling only 1 Gbps. Although there is no congestion (the network
itself is not in trouble), flow control is needed to force the supercomputer to stop frequently to
give the personal computer a chance to breathe.
At the other extreme, consider a network with 1-Mbps lines and 1000 large computers, half of
which are trying to transfer files at 100 kbps to the other half. Here, the problem is not that of
fast senders overpowering slow receivers, but that the total offered traffic exceeds what the
network can handle.

The reason congestion control and flow control are often confused is that the best way to handle
both problems is to get the host to slow down. Thus, a host can get a ‘‘slow down’’ message
either because the receiver cannot handle the load or because the network cannot handle it.

Several techniques can be employed. These include:

1. Warning bit
2. Choke packets
3. Load shedding
4. Random early discard
5. Traffic shaping
The first 3 deal with congestion detection and recovery. The last 2 deal with congestion
avoidance

Warning Bit
1. A special bit in the packet header is set by the router to warn the source when congestion is
detected.
2. The bit is copied and piggy-backed on the ACK and sent to the sender.
3. The sender monitors the number of ACK packets it receives with the warning bit set and
adjusts its transmission rate accordingly.
 Choke Packets
1. A more direct way of telling the source to slow down.
2. A choke packet is a control packet generated at a congested node and transmitted to
restrict traffic flow.
3. The source, on receiving the choke packet must reduce its transmission rate by a certain
percentage.
4. An example of a choke packet is the ICMP Source Quench
Packet. Hop-by-Hop Choke Packets
1. Over long distances or at high speeds choke packets are not very effective.
2. A more efficient method is to send to choke packets hop-by-hop.
3. This requires each hop to reduce its transmission even before the choke packet arrive at
the source

Load Shedding
1. When buffers become full, routers simply discard packets.
2. Which packet is chosen to be the victim depends on the application and on the error
strategy used in the data link layer.
3. For a file transfer, for, e.g. cannot discard older packets since this will cause a gap in the
received data.
4. For real-time voice or video it is probably better to throw away old data and keep new
packets.
5. Get the application to mark packets with discard priority.

Random Early Discard (RED)

1. This is a proactive approach in which the router discards one or more packets before the
buffer becomes completely full.
2. Each time a packet arrives, the RED algorithm computes the average queue length, avg.
3. If avg is lower than some lower threshold, congestion is assumed to be minimal or non-
existent and the packet is queued.
4. If avg is greater than some upper threshold, congestion is assumed to be serious and the
packet is discarded.
If avg is between the two thresholds, this might indicate the onset of congestion. The probability of
congestion is then calculated

Traffic Shaping
1. Another method of congestion control is to “shape” the traffic before it enters the
network.
2. Traffic shaping controls the rate at which packets are sent (not just how many). Used in
ATM and Integrated Services networks.
3. At connection set-up time, the sender and carrier negotiate a traffic pattern (shape).

Two traffic shaping algorithms are:

Leaky
Bucket
Token
Bucket

The Leaky Bucket Algorithm used to control rate in a network. It is implemented as a single-
server queue with constant service time. If the bucket (buffer) overflows then packets are
discarded.

(a) A leaky bucket with water. (b) a leaky bucket with packets.
1. The leaky bucket enforces a constant output rate (average rate) regardless of the burstiness
of the input. Does nothing when input is idle.
2. The host injects one packet per clock tick onto the network. This results in a uniform flow
of packets, smoothing out bursts and reducing congestion.
3. When packets are the same size (as in ATM cells), the one packet per tick is okay. For
variable length packets though, it is better to allow a fixed number of bytes per tick. E.g.
1024 bytes per tick will allow one 1024-byte packet or two 512-byte packets or four 256-
byte packets on 1 tick
Token Bucket Algorithm:

1. In contrast to the LB, the Token Bucket Algorithm,

allows the output rate to vary, depending on the size of
the burst.
2. In the TB algorithm, the bucket holds tokens. To transmit a
packet, the host must capture and destroy one token.
3. Tokens are generated by a clock at the rate of one token every Dt sec.
4. Idle hosts can capture and save up tokens (up to the max. size
of the bucket) in order to send larger bursts later.

(a) Before. (b) After.

Leaky Bucket vs. Token Bucket

1. LB discards packets; TB does not. TB discards tokens.
2. With TB, a packet can only be transmitted if there are enough
tokens to cover its length in bytes.
3. LB sends packets at an average rate. TB allows for large bursts to
be sent faster by speeding up the output.
4. TB allows saving up tokens (permissions) to send large bursts. LB does
not allow saving.
QUALITY OF SERVICE:

Quality-of-Service (QoS) refers to traffic control mechanisms that seek to

either differentiate performance based on application or network-operator
requirements or provide predictable or guaranteed performance to applications,
sessions, or traffic aggregates. Basic phenomenon for QoS means in terms of
packet delay and losses of various kinds.
Need for QoS –
 Video and audio conferencing require bounded delay and loss rate.
 Video and audio streaming requires bounded packet loss rate, it may
not be so sensitive to delay.
 Time-critical applications (real-time control) in which bounded delay
is considered to be an important factor.
 Valuable applications should be provided better services than less
valuable applications.
QoSSpecification: –
QoS requirements can be specified as:
1. Delay
2. Delay Variation(Jitter)
3. Throughput
4. Error Rate
There are two types of QoS Solutions:
1. Stateless Solutions –
Routers maintain no fine-grained state about traffic, one positive
factor of it is that it is scalable and robust. But it has weak services as
there is no guarantee about the kind of delay or performance in a
particular application which we have to encounter.
2. Stateful Solutions –
Routers maintain a per-flow state as flow is very important in
providing the Quality-of-Service i.e. providing powerful services
such as guaranteed services and high resource utilization, providing
protection, and is much less scalable and robust.
Integrated Services(IntServ) –
1. An architecture for providing QoS guarantees in IP networks for
individual application sessions.
2. Relies on resource reservation, and routers need to maintain state
information of allocated resources and respond to new call setup
requests.
3. Network decides whether to admit or deny a new call setup request.
IntServ QoS Components –
 Resource reservation: call setup signalling, traffic, QoS declaration,
per-element admission control.
  QoS-sensitive scheduling e.g WFQ queue discipline.
 QoS-sensitive routing algorithm(QSPF)
 QoS-sensitive packet discard strategy.
RSVP-Internet–Signalling
It creates and maintains distributed reservation state, initiated by the receiver
and scales for multicast, which needs to be refreshed otherwise reservation
times out as it is in soft state. Latest paths were discovered through “PATH”
messages (forward direction) and used by RESV messages (reserve direction).
Call Admission –
 Session must first declare it’s QoS requirement and characterize the
traffic it will send through the network.
 R-specification: defines the QoS being requested, i.e. what kind of
bound we want on the delay, what kind of packet loss is acceptable,
etc.
 T-specification: defines the traffic characteristics like bustiness in
the traffic.
 A signalling protocol is needed to carry the R-spec and T-spec to the
routers where reservation is required.
 Routers will admit calls based on their R-spec, T-spec and based on
the current resource allocated at the routers to other calls.
Diff-Serv –
Differentiated Service is a stateful solution in which each flow doesn’t mean a
different state. It provides reduced state services i.e. maintaining state only for
larger granular flows rather than end-to-end flows tries to achieve the best of
both worlds.
Intended to address the following difficulties with IntServ and RSVP:
1. Flexible Service Models:
IntServ has only two classes, want to provide more qualitative
service classes: want to provide ‘relative’ service distinction.
2. Simpler signaling:
Many applications and users may only want to specify a more
qualitative notion of service.
Streaming Live Multimedia –
 Examples: Internet radio talk show, Live sporting event.
 Streaming: playback buffer, playback buffer can lag tens of seconds
after and still have timing constraint.
 Interactivity: fast forward is impossible, but rewind and pause is
possible
INTERNETWORKING:

In real world scenario, networks under same administration are generally

scattered geographically. There may exist requirement of connecting two
different networks of same kind as well as of different kinds. Routing between
two networks is called internetworking.
Networks can be considered different based on various parameters such as,
Protocol, topology, Layer-2 network and addressing scheme.
In internetworking, routers have knowledge of each other’s address and
addresses beyond them. They can be statically configured go on different
network or they can learn by using internetworking routing protocol.

Routing protocols which are used within an organization or administration are

called Interior Gateway Protocols or IGP. RIP, OSPF are examples of IGP.
Routing between different organizations or administrations may have Exterior
Gateway Protocol, and there is only one EGP i.e. Border Gateway Protocol.
Tunneling:
If they are two geographically separate networks, which want to communicate
with each other, they may deploy a dedicated line between or they have to pass
their data through intermediate networks.
Tunnelling is a mechanism by which two or more same networks communicate
with each other, by passing intermediate networking complexities. Tunnelling is
configured at both ends.
When the data enters from one end of Tunnel, it is tagged. This tagged data is
then routed inside the intermediate or transit network to reach the other end of
Tunnel. When data exists the Tunnel its tag is removed and delivered to the
other part of the network.
Both ends seem as if they are directly connected and tagging makes data travel
through transit network without any modifications.
Packet Fragmentation:
Most Ethernet segments have their maximum transmission unit (MTU) fixed to
1500 bytes. A data packet can have more or less packet length depending upon
the application. Devices in the transit path also have their hardware and
software capabilities which tell what amount of data that device can handle and
what size of packet it can process.
If the data packet size is less than or equal to the size of packet the transit
network can handle, it is processed neutrally. If the packet is larger, it is broken
into smaller pieces and then forwarded. This is called packet fragmentation.
Each fragment contains the same destination and source address and routed
through transit path easily. At the receiving end it is assembled again.
If a packet with DF (don’t fragment) bit set to 1 comes to a router which can not
handle the packet because of its length, the packet is dropped.
When a packet is received by a router has its MF (more fragments) bit set to 1,
the router then knows that it is a fragmented packet and parts of the original
packet is on the way.
If packet is fragmented too small, the overhead is increases. If the packet is
fragmented too large, intermediate router may not be able to process it and it
might get dropped.
Every computer in a network has an IP address by which it can be uniquely
identified and addressed. An IP address is Layer-3 (Network Layer) logical
address. This address may change every time a computer restarts. A computer
can have one IP at one instance of time and another IP at some different time.

THE NETWORK LAYER IN THE INTERNET:

At the network layer, the Internet can be viewed as a collection of subnetworks

or autonomous systems that are connected together. There is no real structure,
but several major backbones exist. These are constructed from high-bandwidth
lines and fast routers. Attached to the backbones are regional (mid-level)
networks, and attached to these regional networks are the LANs at many
universities, companies, and Internet service providers. A sketch of this quasi-
hierarchical organization is given in figure below.

The glue that holds the Internet together is the network layer protocol, IP
(Internet Protocol). Unlike most older network layer protocols, it was designed
from the beginning with internetworking in mind. A good way to think of the
network layer is this. Its job is to provide a best - efforts way to transport
datagrams from source to destination, without regard to whether or not these
machines are on the same network, or whether or not there are other networks in
between them.

Communication in the Internet works as follows. The transport layer takes data
streams and breaks them up into datagrams. In theory, datagrams can be up to
64 Kbytes each, but in practice they are usually around 1500 bytes. Each
datagram is transmitted through the Internet, possibly being fragmented into
smaller units as it goes. When all the pieces finally get to the destination
machine, they are reassembled by the network layer into the original datagram.
This datagram is then handed to the transport layer, which inserts it into the
receiving process input stream

The IP Protocol:

An appropriate place to start our study of the network layer in the Internet is the
format of the IP datagrams themselves. An IP datagram consists of a header part
and a text part. The header has a 20-byte fixed part and a variable length
optional part. The header format is shown in figure below. It is transmitted in
big endian order: from left to right, with the high - order bit of the Version field
going first. (The SPARC is big endian; the Pentium is little endian.) On little
endian machines, software conversion is required on both transmission and
reception.
he Version field keeps track of which version of the protocol the datagram
belongs to. By including the version in each datagram, it becomes possible to
have the transition between versions take months, or even years, with some
machines running the old version and others running the new one.

Since the header length is not constant, a field in the header, IHL, is provided to
tell how long the header is, in 32-bit words. The minimum value is 5, which
applies when no options are present. The maximum value of this 4-bit field is
15, which limits the header to 60 bytes, and thus the options field to 40 bytes.
For some options, such as one that records the route a packet has taken, 40 bytes
is far too small, making the option useless.

The Type of service field allows the host to tell the subnet what kind of service
it wants. Various combinations of reliability and speed are possible. For
digitized voice, fast delivery beats accurate delivery. For file transfer, error-free
transmission is more important than fast transmission.

The field itself contains (from left to right), a three-bit Precedence field, three
flags, D, T, and R, and 2 unused bits. The Precedence field is a priority, from 0
(normal) to 7 (network control packet). The three flag bits allow the host to
specify what it cares most about from the set {Delay, Throughput, Reliability}.
In theory, these fields allow routers to make choices between, for example, a
satellite link with high throughput and high delay or a leased line with low
throughput and low delay. In practice, current routers ignore the Type of
Service field altogether.

IP Addresses:
Every host and router on the Internet has an IP address, which encodes its
network number and host number. The combination is unique: no two machines
have the same IP address. All IP addresses are 32 bits long and are used in the
Source address and Destination address fields of IP packets. The formats used
for IP address are shown in figure below. Those machines connected to multiple
networks have a different IP address on each network.

The class A, B, C, and D formats allow for up to 126 networks with 16 million
hosts each, 16,382 networks with up to 64K hosts, 2 million networks, (e.g.
LANs), with up to 254 hosts each, and multicast, in which a datagram is
directed to multiple hosts. Addresses beginning with 11110 are reserved for
future use. Tens of thousands of networks are now connected to the Internet,
and the number doubles every year. Network numbers are assigned by the NIC
(Network Information Centre) to avoid conflicts.

Network addresses, which are 32-bit numbers, are usually written in dotted
decimal notation. In this format, each of the 4 bytes is written in decimal, from
0 to 255. For example, 192.41.6.20. The lowest IP address is 0.0.0.0 and the
highest is 255.255.255.255.

SUBNETS:
As we already understand, all the hosts in a network must have the same
network number. This property of IP addressing can cause problems as
networks grow, For example, consider a company that starts out with one class
C LAN on the Internet. As time goes on, it might acquire more than 254
machines, and thus need a second class C address. Alternatively, it might
acquire a second LAN of a different type and want a separate IP address for it
(the LANs could be bridged to form a single IP network, but bridges have their
own problems). Eventually, it might end up with many LANs, each with its own
router and each with its own class C network number.

As the number of distinct local networks grows, managing them can become a
serious headache. Every time a new network is installed the system
administrator has to contact NIC to get a new network number. Then this
number must be announced worldwide. Furthermore, moving a machine from
one LAN to another requires it to change its IP address, which in turn may mean
modifying its configuration files and also announcing the new IP address to the
world. If some other machine is given the newly - released IP address, that
machine will get email and other data intended for the original machine.

The solution to these problems is to allow a network to be split into several

parts for internal use but still act like a single network to the outside world. In
the Internet literature, these parts are called subnets. This usage conflicts with
"subnet" to mean the set of all routers and communication lines in a network.
Hopefully it will be clear from the context which meaning is intended. In this
section, the new definition will be the one used. If our growing company started
up with a class B address instead of a class C address, it could start out just
numbering the hosts from 1 to 254. When the second LAN arrived, it could
decide, for example, to split the 16-bit host number into a 6-bit subnet number
and a 10-bit host number, as shown in figure below. This split allows 62 LANs
(0 and -1 are reserved), each with up to 1022 hosts.