Computer Networks

Chapter 8

Switching

Anam Taskeen
Switching
Three Methods of Switching
❑ Traditionally, three methods of switching have been discussed:

circuit switching, packet switching, and message switching

❑ Packet switching can further be divided into two subcategories—

virtual-circuit approach and datagram approach.
Switching and TCP/IP Layers
Switching can happen at several layers of the TCP/IP protocol suite.
• Switching at Physical Layer:
At the physical layer, we can have only circuit switching. There are no packets exchanged at the
physical layer. The switches at the physical layer allow signals to travel in one path or another.
• Switching at Data-Link Layer
At the data-link layer, we can have packet switching. However, the term packet in this case
means frames or cells. Packet switching at the data-link layer is normally done using a virtual-
circuit approach.
• Switching at Network Layer
At the network layer, we can have packet switching. In this case, either a virtual-circuit approach
or a datagram approach can be used. Currently the Internet uses a datagram approach.
• Switching at Application Layer
At the application layer, we can have only message switching. The communication at the
application layer occurs by exchanging messages. Conceptually, we can say that communication
using e-mail is a kind of message-switched communication, but we do not see any network that
actually can be called a message-switched network.
CIRCUIT-SWITCHED NETWORKS
A circuit-switched network consists of a set of switches connected by physical
links. A connection between two stations is a dedicated path made of one or
more links. However, each connection uses only one dedicated channel on each
link. Each link is normally divided into n channels by using FDM or TDM.
CIRCUIT-SWITCHED NETWORKS
• We have explicitly shown the multiplexing symbols to emphasize the division
of the link into channels even though multiplexing can be implicitly included in
the switch fabric.
• The end systems, such as computers or telephones, are directly connected to
a switch. We have shown only two end systems for simplicity. When end
system A needs to communicate with end system M, system A needs to
request a connection to M that must be accepted by all switches as well as by
M itself. This is called the setup phase; a circuit (channel) is reserved on each
link, and the combination of circuits or channels defines the dedicated path.
• After the dedicated path made of connected circuits (channels) is established,
the data-transfer phase can take place. After all data have been transferred,
the circuits are torn down.
CIRCUIT-SWITCHED NETWORKS
We need to emphasize several points here:
• Circuit switching takes place at the physical layer.
• Before starting communication, the stations must make a reservation for the resources to
be used during the communication. These resources, such as channels (bandwidth in
FDM and time slots in TDM), switch buffers, switch processing time, and switch
input/output ports, must remain dedicated during the entire duration of data transfer until
the teardown phase.
• Data transferred between the two stations are not packetized (physical layer transfer of
the signal). The data are a continuous flow sent by the source station and received by the
destination station, although there may be periods of silence.
• There is no addressing involved during data transfer. The switches route the data based
on their occupied band (FDM) or time slot (TDM). Of course, there is end-to-end
addressing used during the setup phase.
• In circuit switching, the resources need to be reserved during the setup phase; the
resources remain dedicated for the entire duration of data transfer until the teardown
phase.
CIRCUIT-SWITCHED NETWORKS
Three Phases:
• Setup Phase
Before the two parties (or multiple parties in a conference call) can
communicate, a dedicated circuit (combination of channels in links) needs to be
established. The end systems are normally connected through dedicated lines to
the switches, so connection setup means creating dedicated channels between
the switches.
• Data-Transfer Phase
After the establishment of the dedicated circuit (channels), the two parties can
transfer data.
• Teardown Phase
When one of the parties needs to disconnect, a signal is sent to each switch to
release the resources
CIRCUIT-SWITCHED NETWORKS
CIRCUIT-SWITCHED NETWORKS
• Efficiency: It can be argued that circuit-switched networks are not as efficient
as the other two types of networks because resources are allocated during the
entire duration of the connection. These resources are unavailable to other
connections. In a telephone network, people normally terminate the
communication when they have finished their conversation. However, in
computer networks, a computer can be connected to another computer even if
there is no activity for a long time. In this case, allowing resources to be
dedicated means that other connections are deprived.
• Delay: Although a circuit-switched network normally has low efficiency, the
delay in this type of network is minimal. During data transfer the data are not
delayed at each switch; the resources are allocated for the duration of the
connection.
CIRCUIT-SWITCHED NETWORKS
CIRCUIT-SWITCHED NETWORKS
• delay in a circuit-switched network when only two switches are involved
As Figure 8.6 shows, there is no waiting time at each switch. The total delay is
due to the time needed to create the connection, transfer data, and disconnect
the circuit. The delay caused by the setup is the sum of four parts: the
propagation time of the source computer request (slope of the first gray box), the
request signal transfer time (height of the first gray box), the propagation time of
the acknowledgment from the destination computer (slope of the second gray
box), and the signal transfer time of the acknowledgment (height of the second
gray box). The delay due to data transfer is the sum of two parts: the
propagation time (slope of the colored box) and data transfer time (height of the
colored box), which can be very long. The third box shows the time needed to
tear down the circuit. We have shown the case in which the receiver requests
disconnection, which creates the maximum delay.
PACKET SWITCHING
• In data communications, we need to send messages from one end system to
another. If the message is going to pass through a packet-switched network, it
needs to be divided into packets of fixed or variable size. The size of the
packet is determined by the network and the governing protocol. In packet
switching, there is no resource allocation for a packet. This means that there
is no reserved bandwidth on the links, and there is no scheduled processing
time for each packet. Resources are allocated on demand. The allocation is
done on a first come, first-served basis. When a switch receives a packet, no
matter what the source or destination is, the packet must wait if there are
other packets being processed. As with other systems in our daily life, this
lack of reservation may create delay. For example, if we do not have a
reservation at a restaurant, we might have to wait.
PACKET SWITCHING
• In a datagram network, each packet is treated independently of all others.
Even if a packet is part of a multi-packet transmission, the network treats it as
though it existed alone. Packets in this approach are referred to as
datagrams. Datagram switching is normally done at the network layer. We
briefly discuss datagram networks here as a comparison with circuit-switched
and virtual-circuits witched networks.
• Figure 8.7 shows how the datagram approach is used to deliver four packets
from station A to station X. The switches in a datagram network are
traditionally referred to as routers. That is why we use a different symbol for
the switches in the figure.
PACKET SWITCHING
• All four packets (datagrams) belong to the same message, but may travel different paths
to reach their destination, because the links may be involved in carrying packets from
other sources and do not have the necessary bandwidth available to carry all the packets
from A to X. This can cause the datagrams of a transmission to arrive at their destination
out of order with different delays between the packets. Packets may also be lost/dropped
because of a lack of resources. In most protocols, it is the responsibility of an upper-layer
protocol to ask for lost datagrams before passing them on to the application.
PACKET SWITCHING
• The datagram networks are sometimes referred to as connectionless
networks. The term connectionless here means that the switch (packet switch)
does not keep information about the connection state. There are no setup or
teardown phases. Each packet is treated the same by a switch regardless of
its source or destination.
PACKET SWITCHING
• Routing Table
If there are no setup or teardown phases, how are the packets routed to their destinations in
a datagram network?
In this type of network, each switch (or packet switch) has a routing table which is based on the destination
address. The routing tables are dynamic and are updated periodically. The destination addresses and the
corresponding forwarding output ports are recorded in the tables. This is different from the table of a circuit
switched network in which each entry is created when the setup phase is completed and deleted when the
teardown phase is over.
PACKET SWITCHING
• Destination Address
Every packet in a datagram network carries a header that contains, among other
information, the destination address of the packet. When the switch receives the
packet, this destination address is examined; the routing table is consulted to
find the corresponding port through which the packet should be forwarded. This
address, unlike the address in a virtual-circuit network, remains the same during
the entire journey of the packet.
• Efficiency
The efficiency of a datagram network is better than that of a circuit-switched
network; resources are allocated only when there are packets to be transferred.
If a source sends a packet and there is a delay of a few minutes before another
packet can be sent, the resources can be reallocated during these minutes for
other packets from other sources.
PACKET SWITCHING
• Delay
There may be greater delay in a datagram network than in a virtual-circuit network.
Although there are no setup and teardown phases, each packet may experience a wait at
a switch before it is forwarded. In addition, since not all packets in a message necessarily
travel through the same switches, the delay is not uniform for the packets of a message.
PACKET SWITCHING
• Delay
The packet travels through two switches. There are three transmission times
(3T), three propagation delays (slopes 3τ of the lines), and two waiting times
(w1 + w2). We ignore the processing time in each switch. The total delay is
Virtual-Circuit Networks
• A virtual-circuit network is a cross between a circuit-switched network and a
datagram network. It has some characteristics of both.
1) As in a circuit-switched network, there are setup and teardown phases in
addition to the data transfer phase.
2) Resources can be allocated during the setup phase, as in a circuit-switched
network, or on demand, as in a datagram network.
3) As in a datagram network, data are packetized and each packet carries an
address in the header. However, the address in the header has local
jurisdiction (it defines what the next switch should be and the channel on
which the packet is being carried), not end-to-end jurisdiction.
4) As in a circuit-switched network, all packets follow the same path established
during the connection.
5) A virtual-circuit network is normally implemented in the data-link layer, while a
circuit-switched network is implemented in the physical layer and a datagram
network in the network layer. But this may change in the future.
Virtual-Circuit Networks
• Figure 8.10 is an example of a virtual-circuit network. The network has
switches that allow traffic from sources to destinations. A source or destination
can be a computer, packet switch, bridge, or any other device that connects
other networks.
Virtual-Circuit Networks
• Addressing
In a virtual-circuit network, two types of addressing are involved: global and local
(virtual-circuit identifier).
Global Addressing: A source or a destination needs to have a global address—
an address that can be unique in the scope of the network or internationally if the
network is part of an international network. However, we will see that a global
address in virtual-circuit networks is used only to create a virtual-circuit identifier,
as discussed next.
Virtual-Circuit Identifier: The identifier that is actually used for data transfer is
called the virtual-circuit identifier (VCI) or the label. A VCI, unlike a global
address, is a small number that has only switch scope; it is used by a frame
between two switches. When a frame arrives at a switch, it has a VCI; when it
leaves, it has a different VCI.
Virtual-Circuit Networks
Figure 8.11 shows how the VCI in a data frame changes from one switch to another. Note that a
VCI does not need to be a large number since each switch can use its own unique set of VCIs.

Three Phases: As in a circuit-switched network, a source and destination need to go through

three phases in a virtual-circuit network: setup, data transfer, and teardown. In the setup phase,
the source and destination use their global addresses to help switches make table entries for the
connection. In the teardown phase, the source and destination inform the switches to delete the
corresponding entry. Data transfer occurs between these two phases.
Virtual-Circuit Networks
• Data-Transfer Phase: To transfer a frame from a source to its destination, all
switches need to have a table entry for this virtual circuit. The table, in its simplest
form, has four columns. This means that the switch holds four pieces of information
for each virtual circuit that is already set up. Figure 8.12 shows such a switch and its
corresponding table.
• Figure 8.12 shows a frame
arriving at port 1 with a VCI
of 14. When the frame
arrives, the switch looks in its
table to find port 1 and a VCI
of 14. When it is found, the
switch knows to change the
VCI to 22 and send out the
frame from port 3.
Virtual-Circuit Networks
• Figure 8.13 shows how a frame from source A reaches destination B and how
its VCI changes during the trip. Each switch changes the VCI and routes the
frame. The data-transfer phase is active until the source sends all its frames
to the destination. The procedure at the switch is the same for each frame of a
message. The process creates a virtual circuit, not a real circuit, between the
source and destination.
• Setup Phase
In the setup phase, a switch creates an entry for a virtual circuit. For example,
suppose source A needs to create a virtual circuit to B. Two steps are required:
the setup request and the acknowledgment.
Setup Request:
A setup request frame is sent from the source to the destination. Figure 8.14
shows the process.
Virtual-Circuit Networks
Virtual-Circuit Networks
Virtual-Circuit Networks
• Acknowledgment A special frame, called the acknowledgment frame,
completes the entries in the switching tables. Figure 8.15 shows the process
Virtual-Circuit Networks
• Teardown Phase: In this phase, source A, after sending all frames to B,
sends a special frame called a teardown request. Destination B responds with
a teardown confirmation frame. All switches delete the corresponding entry
from their tables.
• Efficiency: As we said before, resource reservation in a virtual-circuit network
can be made during the setup or can be on demand during the data-transfer
phase. In the first case, the delay for each packet is the same; in the second
case, each packet may encounter different delays. There is one big advantage
in a virtual-circuit network even if resource allocation is on demand. The
source can check the availability of the resources, without actually reserving it.
Consider a family that wants to dine at a restaurant. Although the restaurant
may not accept reservations (allocation of the tables is on demand), the family
can call and find out the waiting time. This can save the family time and effort.
Virtual-Circuit Networks
In virtual-circuit switching, all packets belonging to the same source and
destination travel the same path, but the packets may arrive at the destination
with different delays if resource allocation is on demand.

• Delay in Virtual-Circuit Networks:

In a virtual-circuit network, there is a one-time delay for setup and a one-time
delay for teardown. If resources are allocated during the setup phase, there is no
wait time for individual packets.
Switching at the data-link layer in a switched WAN is normally implemented by
using virtual-circuit techniques.