2. Business Data Communications, 5e 2
Increase in High-Speed LANs
• Extraordinary growth in speed, power, and
storage capacity of PCs
• Increasing use of LANs as computing
platforms
• Examples
– Server farms
– Workgroups with “power” requirements
– High-speed backbones
3. Business Data Communications, 5e 3
Increase in High-Speed LANs
• Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet
• Fibre Channel
• High-speed Wireless LANs
5. Business Data Communications, 5e 5
Trends Influencing Emergence
of High-Speed LANs
• Explosive growth of speed and computing
power of PCs
• Recognition by MIS organizations of the
value and importance of networked
computing
– Centralized server farms
– Power workgroups
– High-speed local backbone
6. Business Data Communications, 5e 6
Traditional Ethernet
• Ethernet and CSMA/CD (IEEE 802.3)
• Carrier sense multiple access with collision
detection
• Four step procedure
– If medium is idle, transmit
– If medium is busy, listen until idle and then transmit
– If collision is detected, cease transmitting
– After a collision, wait a random amount of time before
retransmitting
7. Business Data Communications, 5e 7
Ethernet MAC Frame Format
• Preamble: 7-octet pattern of 0s &1s used to establish bit
synchronization.
• Start Frame Delimiter (SFD): Indicates actual start of frame.
• Destination Address (DA): Specifies the station(s) for which the
frame is intended
• Source Address (SA): Specifies the station that sent the frame.
• Length: Length of LLC data field in octets.
• LLC Data: Data unit supplied by LLC.
• Pad: Octets added to ensure that the frame is long enough for proper
CD operation.
• Frame Check Sequence (FCS): A 32-bit CRC, based on all fields
except preamble, SFD, and FCS.
9. Business Data Communications, 5e 9
802.3 Medium Notation
• Notation format:
<data rate in Mbps><signaling
method><maximum segment length in
hundreds of meters>
• e.g 10Base5 provides 10Mbps baseband,
up to 500 meters
• T and F are used in place of segment
length for twisted pair and fiber
11. Business Data Communications, 5e 11
Bridges
• Allow connections between LANs and to WANs
• Used between networks using identical
physical and link layer protocols
• Provide a number of advantages
– Reliability: Creates self-contained units
– Performance: Less contention
– Security: Not all data broadcast to all users
– Geography: Allows long-distance links
12. Business Data Communications, 5e 12
Bridge Functions
• Read all frames from each network
• Accept frames from sender on one network that are
addressed to a receiver on the other network
• Retransmit frames from sender using MAC protocol
for receiver
• Must have some routing information stored in order
to know which frames to pass
14. Business Data Communications, 5e 14
Key Aspects of Bridge Function
• Makes no modification to content or format of
frames it receives; simply copies from one LAN
and repeats with exactly the same bit pattern as
the other LAN.
• Should contain enough buffer space to meet peak
demands.
• Must contain addressing and routing intelligence.
• May connect more than two LANs.
15. Business Data Communications, 5e 15
Hubs
• Alternative to bus topology
• Each station is connected to the hub by two lines
(transmit and receive)
• When a single station transmits, the hub repeats
the signal on the outgoing line to each station.
• Physically a star; logically a bus.
• Hubs can be cascaded in a hierarchical
configuration.
17. Business Data Communications, 5e 17
Layer 2 Switches
• Also called a “switching hub”
• Has replaced hub in popularity, particularly for
high-speed LANs
• Provides greater performance than a hub
• Incoming frame from a particular station is
switched to the appropriate output line to be
delivered to the intended destination
• At the same time, other unused lines can be used
for switching other traffic
19. Business Data Communications, 5e 19
Advantages of Switched Hubs
• No modifications needed to workstations
when replacing shared-medium hub
• Each device has a dedicated capacity
equivalent to entire LAN
• Easy to attach additional devices to the
network
20. Business Data Communications, 5e 20
Types of Switched Hubs
• Store and forward switch
– Accepts a frame on input line
– Buffers it briefly
– Routes it to appropriate output line
• Cut-through switch
– Begins repeating the frame as soon as it
recognizes the destination MAC address
– Higher throughput, increased chance of error
21. Business Data Communications, 5e 21
Differences Between
Switched Hubs and Bridges
• Bridge frame handling is done in software. A layer 2
switch performs the address recognition and frame
forwarding functions in hardware.
• Bridges typically only analyze and forward one frame at
a time; a layer 2 switch can handle multiple frames at a
time.
• Bridges uses store-and-forward operation; layer 2
switches use cut-through instead of store-and-forward
operation
• New installations typically include layer 2 switches with
bridge functionality rather than bridges.
22. Business Data Communications, 5e 22
Problems With Layer 2 Switches
• Broadcast overload
• Lack of multiple links
• Can be solved with subnetworks connected by
routers
• However, high-speed LANs layer 2 switches
process millions of packets per second whereas a
software-based router may only be able to handle
well under a million packets per second
23. Business Data Communications, 5e 23
Layer 3 Switches
• Implement the packet-forwarding logic of the router in
hardware.
• Packet-by-packet switch operates like a traditional router
– Forwarding logic is in hardware
– Achieves an order of magnitude increase in performance
compared to software-based routers
• Flow-based switch identifies flows of IP packets that
have the same source and destination
– Once flow is identified, a predefined route can be established to
speed up the forwarding process
– Again, huge performance increases over a pure software-based
router are achieved
24. Business Data Communications, 5e 24
Why Use Ethernet for
High-Speed Networks?
• Negative
– CSMA/CD is not an ideal choice for high-speed LAN
design due to scaling issues, but there are reasons for
retaining Ethernet protocols
• Positive
– Use of switched Ethernet hubs in effect eliminates
collisions
– CSMA/CD protocol is well understood; vendors have
experience building the hardware, firmware, and
software
– Easy for customers to integrate with existing systems
25. Business Data Communications, 5e 25
Fast Ethernet
• Refers to low-cost, Ethernet-compatible
LANs operating at 100 Mbps
• 802.3 committee defined a number of
alternatives to be used with different
transmission media
28. Business Data Communications, 5e 28
Gigabit Ethernet
• Retains CSMA/CD protocol and Ethernet
format, ensuring smooth upgrade path
• Uses optical fiber over short distances
• 1-gbps switching hub provides backbone
connectivity
30. Business Data Communications, 5e 30
10-Gbps Ethernet
• Driven by increased network traffic
– Increased number of network connections
– Increased connection speed of each end-station (e.g.,
10 Mbps users moving to 100 Mbps, analog 56k users
moving to DSL and cable modems)
– Increased deployment of bandwidth-intensive
applications such as high-quality video
– Increased Web hosting and application hosting traffic
31. Business Data Communications, 5e 31
10-Gbps Ethernet vs ATM
• No expensive, bandwidth-consuming conversion
between Ethernet packets and ATM cells is
required
• Combination of IP and Ethernet offers quality of
service and traffic policing capabilities that
approach those provided by ATM
• A wide variety of standard optical interfaces have
been specified for 10-Gbps Ethernet, optimizing
its operation and cost for LAN, MAN, or WAN
applications
34. Business Data Communications, 5e 34
Fibre Channel
• Combine the best features of channel and
protocol-based technologies
– the simplicity and speed of channel communications
– the flexibility and inter-connectivity that characterize
protocol-based network communications.
• More like a traditional circuit-switched or packet-
switched network, in contrast to the typical
shared-medium LAN
35. Business Data Communications, 5e 35
Fibre Channel Goals
• Full-duplex links with
two fibers per link
• Performance from 100
Mbps to 800 Mbps on a
single link (200 Mbps
to1600 Mbps per link)
• Support for distances up
to 10 km
• Small connectors
• High-capacity utilization
with distance insensitivity
• Greater connectivity than
existing multidrop
channels
• Broad availability (i.e.,
standard components)
• Support for multiple
cost/performance levels,
from small systems to
supercomputers
• Ability to carry multiple
existing interface
command sets for existing
channel and network
protocols
36. Business Data Communications, 5e 36
Fibre Channel Elements
• Nodes
– The end systems
– Includes one or more N_ ports for interconnection
• Fabric
– Collection of switching elements s between systems
– Each element includes multiple F_ ports
– Responsible for buffering and for routing frames
between source and destination nodes
37. Business Data Communications, 5e 37
Fibre Channel
Protocol Architecture
• FC-0 Physical Media: Includes optical fiber,
coaxial cable, and shielded twisted pair, based on
distance requirements
• FC-1 Transmission Protocol: Defines the signal
encoding scheme
• FC-2 Framing Protocol: Defines topologies,
frame format, flow/error control, and grouping of
frames
• FC-3 Common Services: Includes multicasting
• FC-4 Mapping: Defines the mapping of various
channel and network protocols to Fibre Channel
38. Business Data Communications, 5e 38
Fibre Channel Media
• Media options include shielded twisted
pair, video coaxial cable, and optical fiber
• Data rates range from 100 Mbps to 3.2
Gbps
• Point-to-point link distances range from 33
m to 10 km
39. Business Data Communications, 5e 39
Fibre Channel Topologies
• Fabric/Switched Topology
– includes at least 1 switch to interconnect end systems.
– may also use multiple switches for a switched network, with
switches also supporting end nodes
• Point-to-point topology
– only two ports, directly connected, with no intervening fabric
switches
• Arbitrated loop topology
– Simple, low-cost topology for connecting up to 126 nodes in a
loop.
– Operates in a manner roughly equivalent to token ring protocols