ADVANCED COMPUTER NETWORKS

& COMMUNICATIONS
 “Learn as if you will live
forever, live like you will die
tomorrow.”

Mahatma Gandhi
15-2
 Computer Networks

• Computer network
connects two or
more autonomous
computers.

• The computers can

be geographically
located anywhere.

15-3
 Networking

• The generic term node or host refers to

any device on a network
• Data transfer rate: the speed with which
data is moved from one place on a
network to another
• Data transfer rate is a key issue in
computer networks

15-4
 Applications of Networks

Resource Sharing
Hardware (computing resources, disks, printers)
Software (application software)
Information Sharing
Easy accessibility from anywhere (files, databases)
Search Capability (WWW)
Communication
Email
Message broadcast
Remote computing
Distributed processing (GRID Computing)
15-5
 Networking

• Computer networks have opened up an

entire frontier in the world of computing
called the client/server model

Figure 15.1 Client/Server interaction 15-6

 Networking

• File server A computer that stores and

manages files for multiple users on a
network
• Web server A computer dedicated to
responding to requests (from the browser
client) for web pages

15-7
 Types of Networks

• Personal-area network (PAN) is

a computer network for interconnecting
devices centered on an individual person's
workspace - typically within a range of 10
meters.
• Local-area network (LAN) A network
that connects a relatively small number of
machines in a relatively close
geographical area
15-8
 Types of Networks

• Metropolitan-area network (MAN) The

communication infrastructures that have
been developed in and around large cities

15-9
 Types of Networks

• Wide-area network (WAN) A network that

connects two or more local-area networks over a
potentially large geographic distance
Often one particular node on a LAN is set up to serve
as a gateway to handle all communication going
between that LAN and other networks

Communication between networks is called

internetworking
The Internet, as we know it today, is essentially the
ultimate wide-area network, spanning the entire globe

15-10
 Cont.

• Various configurations, called topologies, have

been used to administer LANs
– Ring topology A configuration that connects all
nodes in a closed loop on which messages travel in
one direction
– Star topology A configuration that centers around
one node to which all others are connected and
through which all messages are sent
– Bus topology All nodes are connected to a single
communication line that carries messages in both
directions
15-11
 Cont.

• - Mesh topology connects all devices (nodes) to each

other for redundancy and fault tolerance. It is used in
WANs to interconnect LANs and for mission critical
networks like those used by banks and financial
institutions.
– Tree topology Larger networks use the extended star
topology also called tree topology. When used with
network devices that filter frames or packets, like bridges,
switches, and routers, this topology significantly reduces
the traffic on the wires by sending packets only to the
wires of the destination host.
– Hybrid Topology: Combination of two or more topologies
15-12
 Network Topology

Hybrid Tree topology 15-10

 So, who owns the Internet?

Well, nobody does. No single person or

company owns the Internet or even
controls it entirely. As a wide-area
network, it is made up of many smaller
networks. These smaller networks are
often owned and managed by a person or
organization. The Internet, then, is really
defined by how connections can be made
between these networks.
15-14
 Types of Networks

Figure 15.1 Local-area networks connected across a distance to

create a wide-area network 15-15
 Internet Connections

• Internet backbone A set of high-speed

networks that carry Internet traffic
These networks are provided by
companies such as AT&T, GTE, and IBM
• Internet service provider (ISP) A
company that provides other companies or
individuals with access to the Internet

15-16
 Internet Connections

• There are various technologies available that you can

use to connect a home computer to the Internet
– A phone modem converts computer data into an analog
audio signal for transfer over a telephone line, and then a
modem at the destination converts it back again into data
– A digital subscriber line (DSL) uses regular copper phone
lines to transfer digital data to and from the phone company’s
central office
– A cable modem uses the same line that your cable TV
signals come in on to transfer the data back and forth

15-17
Internet Connections

15-18
 Internet Connections

• Broadband A connection in which transfer

speeds are faster than 128 bits per second
– DSL connections and cable modems are broadband
connections
– The speed for downloads (getting data from the
Internet to your home computer) may not be the same
as uploads (sending data from your home computer
to the Internet)

15-19
 Packet Switching

• To improve the efficiency of transferring information over

a shared communication line, messages are divided into
fixed-sized, numbered packets
• Network devices called routers are used to direct
packets between networks
Figure 15.4
Messages
sent by
packet
switching

15-18
 Open Systems

• Proprietary system A system that uses

technologies kept private by a particular
commercial vendor
One system couldn’t communicate with another,
leading to the need for
• Interoperability The ability of software and
hardware on multiple machines and from
multiple commercial vendors to communicate
Leading to
• Open systems Systems based on a common
model of network architecture and a suite of
protocols used in its implementation
15-21
 Open Systems

• The International
Organization for
Standardization (ISO)
established the Open
Systems
Interconnection (OSI)
Reference Model
• Each layer deals with a
Figure 15.5 The layers of the OSI Reference Model
particular aspect of
network communication

15-22
 Network Protocols

• Network protocols are layered such that

each one relies on the protocols that
underlie it
• Sometimes referred to as a protocol
stack

Figure 15.6 Layering of key network protocols

15-23
 TCP/IP

• TCP stands for Transmission Control Protocol

TCP software breaks messages into packets,
hands them off to the IP software for delivery,
and then orders and reassembles the packets
at their destination
• IP stands for Internet Protocol
IP software deals with the routing of packets
through the maze of interconnected networks
to their final destination

15-24
 TCP/IP (cont.)

• UDP stands for User Datagram Protocol

– It is an alternative to TCP
– The main difference is that TCP is highly
reliable, at the cost of decreased
performance, while UDP is less reliable, but
generally faster

15-25
 High-Level Protocols

• Other protocols build on the foundation

established by the TCP/IP protocol suite
– Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
– File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
– Telnet
– Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (http)

15-26
 MIME Types

• Related to the idea of network protocols

and standardization is the concept of a
file’s MIME type
– MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extension
– Based on a document’s MIME type, an
application program can decide how to deal
with the data it is given

15-27
MIME Types

Figure 15.7
Some protocols
and the ports
they use

15-28
 Firewalls

• Firewall A machine and its software that

serve as a special gateway to a network,
protecting it from inappropriate access
– Filters the network traffic that comes in,
checking the validity of the messages as
much as possible and perhaps denying some
messages altogether
– Enforces an organization’s access control
policy
15-29
 Firewalls

Figure 15.8 A firewall protecting a LAN 15-30

 Network Addresses

• Hostname A unique identification that

specifies a particular computer on the
Internet

15-31
 Network Addresses

• Network software translates a hostname

into its corresponding IP address
For example
205.39.145.18

15-32
 Network Addresses

• An IP address can be split into

– network address, which specifies a specific network
– host number, which specifies a particular machine in
that network

Figure 15.9
An IP address is
stored in four
bytes

15-33
 Domain Name System

• The very last section of the domain is called its

top-level domain (TLD) name

Figure 15.10 Top-level domains, including some relatively new ones 15-34
 Domain Name System

• Organizations based in countries other than the

United States use a top-level domain that
corresponds to their two-letter country codes

Figure 15.11
Some of the top-level domain
names based on country codes

15-35
 Domain Name System

• The domain name system (DNS) is

chiefly used to translate hostnames into
numeric IP addresses
– DNS is an example of a distributed database
– If that server can resolve the hostname, it
does so
– If not, that server asks another domain name
server

15-36
QUESTIONS

15-37