CHAPTER 6 COMPUTER NETWORKS

6 Computer
11/19/2023
1
Networks 6 Computer Networks
Objectives

After studying this chapter, the student should be

able to:
 Describe local and wide area networks (LANs and WANs).
Distinguish an internet from the Internet.
Describe the TCP/IP protocol suite as the network model in the Internet.
Define the layers in the TCP/IP protocol suite and their relationship.
Describe some applications at the application layer.
Describe the services provided by the transport-layer protocols.
Describe the services provided by the network-layer protocols
Describe different protocols used at the data-link layer.
Describe the duties of the physical layer.
Describe the different transmission media used in computer networking.

6.2
6-1 INTRODUCTION

• A network is a combination of hardware and software

that sends data from one location to another.
• The hardware consists of the physical equipment that
carries signals from one point in the network to another.
• The software consists of instructions that make the
services that we expect from a network possible.

6.3
Local area network
 A local area network (LAN) is usually privately owned and
connects some hosts in a single office, building, or campus.
 Depending on the needs of an organization, a LAN can be as
simple as two PCs and a printer in someone’s home office, or it
can extend throughout a company and include audio and
video devices.
 Each host in a LAN has an identifier, an address, that uniquely
defines the host in the LAN.
 A packet sent by a host to another host carries both the source
host’s and the destination host’s addresses

6.4
Local area network

6.5
Wide area network
 A wide area network (WAN) is also an interconnection of
devices capable of communication.
 However, there are some differences between a LAN and a
WAN.
 A LAN is normally limited in size, spanning an office, a
building, or a campus;
 a WAN has a wider geographical span, spanning a town, a
state, a country, or even the world.
 A LAN interconnects hosts; a WAN interconnects connecting
devices such as switches, routers, or modems.

6.6
Wide area network
 A LAN is normally privately owned by the organization that
uses it;
 a WAN is normally created and run by communication
companies and leased by an organization that uses it. We see
two distinct examples of WANs today: point-to-point WANs
and switched WANs as shown in Figure 6.2

6.7
Wide area network

6.8
Internetwork
 Today, it is very rare to see a LAN or a WAN in isolation; they
are connected to one another.
 When two or more networks are connected, they make an
internetwork, or internet.
 As an example, assume that an organization has two offices.
 Each office has a LAN that allows all employees in the office to
communicate with each other.

6.9
Internetwork
 To make the communication between employees at different
offices possible, the management leases a point-to-point
dedicated WAN from a service provider, such as a telephone
company, and connects the two LANs. Now the company has an
internetwork, or a private internet (with lowercase i).
 Communication between offices is now possible. Figure 6.3
shows this internet.

6.10
Internetwork

6.11
The Internet

 As we discussed before, an internet (note the lowercase i) is

two or more networks that can communicate with each other.

The most notable internet is called the Internet (uppercase I),

and is composed of thousands of interconnected networks.

Figure 6.4 shows a conceptual (not geographical) view of the

Internet.

6.12
The Internet

6.13
Protocol layering

 Modularity in this case means independent layers.

 A layer (module) can be defined as a black box with inputs

and outputs, without concern about how inputs are changed to

outputs.

 If two machines provide the same outputs when given the same

inputs, they can replace each other.

6.14
Principles of protocol layering

 The first principle dictates that if we want bidirectional

communication, we need to make each layer so that it is able to

perform two opposite tasks, one in each direction.

 For example, the third-layer task is to listen (in one direction) and

talk (in the other direction). The second layer needs to be able to

encrypt and decrypt. The first layer needs to send and receive mail.

6.15
Principles of protocol layering

 The second important principle that we need to follow in

protocol layering is that the two objects under each layer at
both sites should be identical.

 For example, the object under layer 3 at both sites should be a

plaintext letter. The object under layer 2 at both sites should
be a ciphertext letter. The object under layer 1 at both sites
should be a piece of mail..

6.16
Protocol layering

6.17
TCP/IP protocol suite
 TCP/IP is a protocol suite (a set of protocols organized in
different layers) used in the Internet today.
 It is a hierarchical protocol made up of interactive modules,
each of which provides a specific functionality. The term
hierarchical means that each upper-level protocol is supported
by the services provided by one or more lower-level protocols.
 The TCP/IP protocol suite is made of five layers as shown in
Figure 6.7.

6.18
TCP/IP protocol suite

6.19
The application layer

 The fifth layer of the TCP/IP protocol is called the application

layer. The application layer provides services to the user.

 Communication is provided using a logical connection, which

means that the two application layers assume that there is an

imaginary direct connection through which they can send and

receive messages.
6.20
The application layer

6.21
Uniform resource locator (URL)
 Protocol. The first identifier is the abbreviation for the client–
server program that we need in order to access the web page.
 Host identifier. The host identifier can be the IP address of the
server or the unique name given to the server.
 Port number. The port, a 16-bit integer, is normally
predefined for the client–server application.
 Path. The path identifies the location and the name of the file
in the underlying operating system. The format of this identifier
normally depends on the operating system.

6.22
Uniform resource locator (URL)

6.23
File Transfer Protocol

 File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the standard protocol provided

by TCP/IP for copying a file from one host to another.

6.24
The transport layer
 The transport layer in the TCP/IP suite is located between the
application layer and the network layer.
 It provides services to the application layer and receives
services from the network layer.
 The transport layer acts as a liaison between a client program
and a server program, a process-to-process connection.
 The transport layer is the heart of the TCP/IP protocol suite; it
is the end-to-end logical vehicle for transferring data from one
point to another in the Internet. Figure 6.19 shows the idea
behind this logical connection.

6.25
The transport layer

6.26
Transport-layer protocols
 The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is a connectionless,
unreliable transport protocol. It does not add anything to the
services of network layer except for providing process-to-
process communication instead of host-to-host communication
 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a connection-oriented,
reliable protocol. TCP explicitly defines connection
establishment, data transfer, and connection teardown phases
to provide a connection-oriented service.

6.27
NETWORK LAYER
 The network layer in the TCP/IP protocol suite is responsible
for the host-to-host delivery of messages.
 Figure 6.24 shows the communication between Alice and Bob
at the network layer assuming that there is only one path from
Alice’s computer to Bob’s computer.
 This is the same scenario we used in the last two sections to
show the communication at the application and the transport
layers, respectively.

6.28
NETWORK LAYER

6.29
Services Provided by network layer

 Packetizing The first duty of the network layer is definitely

packetizing: encapsulating the payload (data received from
the upper layer) in a network-layer packet at the source and
decapsulating the payload from the network-layer packet at
the destination.
 Packet delivery Packet delivery at the network layer is
unreliable and connectionless.
 Routing Another duty of the network layer, which is as
important as the others, is routing. The network layer is
responsible for routing the packet from its source to the
destination.

6.30
Packet delivery

 Unreliable delivery : The delivery of packets at the network layer is

unreliable. This means that the packets can be corrupted, lost, duplicated. In

other words, the network layer provides a best-effort delivery, but there is

no guarantee that a packet will reach the destination as we expect.

 Connectionless delivery The delivery at the network layer is also

connectionless, but the word connectionless here does not mean that there is

no physical connection between the sender and receiver.

6.31
Network-layer protocols

 Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4): The identifier used in the

IPv4 layer of the TCP/IP protocol suite to identify the
connection of each device to the Internet is called the Internet
address or IP address.

 An IPv4 address is a 32-bit address that uniquely and

universally defines the connection of a host or a router to the
Internet.

6.32
Network-layer protocols
 Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4)

6.33
Network-layer protocols

 Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) : To prevent the address

depletion, IPv6 uses 128 bits to define any device connected
to the Internet. An address is represented as either binary or
colon-hexadecimal form. The first form is used to store an
address in the computer; the second form is used by humans.
Figure 6.30 shows the two formats.

6.34
Network-layer protocols

6.35
DATA-LINK LAYER

 The TCP/IP suite does not define any protocol in the data-link
layer. This layer is the territory of networks that when
connected make up the Internet.

 These networks, wired or wireless, receive services and provide

services to the network layer.

 This may give us a clue that there are several standard

protocols in the market today

6.36
PHYSICAL LAYER

 The role of the physical layer is to transfer the bits received

from the data-link layer and convert them to electromagnetic

signals for transmission.

 After the bits are converted to signals, the signals are

delivered to the transmission media

6.37
Data and signals

Analog and Digital

 Digital data take on discrete values.

 For example, data are stored in computer memory in the form of 0s

and 1s. They can be converted to a digital signal or modulated into
an analog signal for transmission across a medium.

 A digital signal, on the other hand, can have only a limited number
of defined values. Although each value can be any number, it is
often as simple as 1 and 0

6.38
Data and signals

6.39
Digital transmission
Digital–to–digital conversion
 If our data is digital and we need to transmit digital signal, we
can use digital-to-digital conversion to change the digital data
to digital signal.
 Although there are many techniques for doing so, in its simplest
form, a bit or group of bits is represented by a signal level

6.40
Digital transmission
Analog-to-digital conversion
 Sometimes we have an analog signal such as one created by a
microphone or camera. The tendency today is to change an
analog signal to digital data because the digital signal is less
susceptible to noise. Although there are several techniques for
doing so, the simplest one is to sample the analog signal to
create a digital data and convert the digital data to digital
signal

6.41
Analog transmission
Digital-to-analog conversion
 Digital-to-analog conversion is the process of changing one of
the characteristics of an analog signal based on the
information in digital data.
 Figure 6.45 shows the relationship between the digital
information, the digital-to-analog conversion process, and the
resultant analog signal.

6.42
Analog transmission
 Analog-to-analog conversion is the process of changing one of
the characteristics of an analog signal based on the
information in digital data. Figure 6.46 shows the relationship
between the digital information, the digital-to-analog
conversion process, and the resultant analog signal.

6.43
TRANSMISSION MEDIA

6.44
TRANSMISSION MEDIA

A transmission medium can be broadly defined as anything

that can carry information from a source to a destination.

6.45
TRANSMISSION MEDIA
 Guided media : Guided media, which are those that
provide a conduit from one device to another, include twisted-
pair cable, coaxial cable, and fiber-optic cable. Figure 6.48
shows the three types of guided media.

6.46
TRANSMISSION MEDIA
 Guided media
 A twisted-pair consists of two conductors (normally copper),
each with its own plastic insulation, twisted together.
 Coaxial cable encased in an outer conductor of metal foil,
braid, or a combination of the two. The outer metallic
wrapping serves both as a shield against noise and as the
second conductor, which completes the circuit.
 A fiber-optic cable is made of glass or plastic and transmits
signals in the form of light.

6.47
TRANSMISSION MEDIA
 Unguided media: wireless
 Radio waves Electromagnetic waves ranging in frequencies between 3
kHz and 1 GHz are normally called radio waves. They are used mostly
for radio communication.
 Microwaves Electromagnetic waves having frequencies between 1 and
300 GHz are called microwaves. Microwaves are unidirectional. When
an antenna transmits microwaves, they can be narrowly focused. This
means that the sending and receiving antennas need to be aligned. The
unidirectional property has an obvious advantage. A pair of antennas
can be aligned without interfering with another pair of aligned
antennas.
 Infrared Infrared waves, with frequencies from 300 GHz to 400

6.48
Summary
 A network is a set of devices connected by communication links
 A protocol is a set of rules that governs communication.
 TCP/IP is a hierarchical protocol suite made of five layers:
application, transport, network, data-link, and physical.
 The main duty of a transport-layer protocol is to provide process-to-
process communication.
 UDP is a transport protocol that provides unreliable and
connectionless service.
 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is another transport-layer
protocol that provides reliable and connection-oriented service.

6.49
Summary
 Data must be transformed to electromagnetic signals to be
transmitted.
 Analog data are continuous and take continuous values.
 Digital data have discrete states and take discrete values.
 Transmission media lie below the physical layer. A guided medium
provides a physical conduit from one device to another.
 Twisted-pair cable, coaxial cable, and optical fiber are the most
popular types of guided media.
 Unguided media (free space) transport electromagnetic waves
without the use of a physical conductor.

6.50
 Important Links
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