The document discusses the history and technical details of Ethernet networking. It describes how Ethernet was developed in the 1970s and standardized in later decades. The key topics covered include transmission media, topologies, protocols, access methods, collision management, addressing, frame formats, extensions, repeater/hubs, bridges, switches, and typical office wiring configurations.
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What is Ethernet ?
Ethernet is a certain type of a local area network (LAN)
which was developed in 1972 in the renowned PARC-
research facility of Xerox in Palo Alto by Robert Metcalfe.
In the meantime the companies Intel, DEC and Xerox
have specified a common standard that has been
established in the IEEE-standard 802.3.
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History
• 1969 student Robert Metcalfe (founder of 3Com in
1979) develops a Host Interface Controller for
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency) in the company DEC.
• 1970 the ALOHA-Net (multiple access protocol) is
developed and tested at the university of Hawaii
• 1972 the idea is picked up by the XEROX Palo Alto
Research Center (Metcalfe works there by then).
The project goal is: experimental Ethernet
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History
• 1976 the results of the project are published. The
companies DEC, Intel and Xerox join in the
company DIX and complete Ethernet to the market
entry stage.
• 1980 Ethernet version 1.0 is passed.
• 1981 IEEE starts standardization efforts. The Ethernet
specification is accepted without major
modifications.
• 1982 Publication of Ethernet version 2.0
• 1985 worldwide recognition of the Ethernet standard as
ISO/DIS 8802/3
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History
• 1986 Publication of the 10Base2- and
10BroadT standards
• 1987 Standardization of the 10BaseT
spezification
• 1991 Publication of the 10BaseF standard
• 1994 more than 10.000 suppliers support the
Ethernet globally
• 1995 Standardization of the 100 Mbit/s Ethernet
• 1997 Standardization efforts for the Gigabit
Ethernet and presentation of first products
prior to the completion of the standard
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Access method: CSMA/CD
Station is ready to
send
check
“Ether”
Sending of data and
checking the “Ether”
Waiting according
to back-off algorithm
Medium
occupied
Discovered
collision
medium
available
send
jam signal
No collision
New attempt
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Back-Off Algorithm
• If a collision has occurred, the stations try to send
again after a certain period of time.
• After the first collision there a two different back-off
times available, from which one is chosen at random.
Transmission probability is 50%
• After the second consecutive collision there are four
different back-off times available, from which one is
chosen at random.
• The transmission probability now is 75%
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Which waiting times are used ?
• The 0...1024 fold of the double max. signal travel time
between the most remote stations + Offset is used
• With 10 Mbit/s Ethernet that means:
• The waiting time is also called collision window, the
offset (9.6µs) is called gap.
• Only after the time of the collision window has passed,
you can be certain that there will be no more collision.
Station 1 Station 2
25.6µs
25.6µs
51.2µs
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Example
• After the first collision the stations willing to send
select a random waiting time of either 9.6µs or 9.6µs
plus 51.2µs (duration of the collision window).
Condition: Only two stations are involved, no new
stations enter the scene in the collision management
phase.
Waiting time(A) waiting time(B) transmission
9.6µs 9.6µs NO
9.6µs 9.6µs+51.2µs YES
9.6µs+51.2µs 9.6µs YES
9.6µs+51.2µs 9.6µs+51.2µs NO
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Ethernet address
• Also called "MAC address"
• Globally unique ID for each device
• Burnt into ROM, cannot be modified
• Six Bytes in which manufacturer, device model and serial
number are coded
• Readable with many auxiliary tools e.g. WINIPCFG
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Ethernet frame
• Preamble
Trailer consisting of the bit sequence “0101010101...” serving the bit
synchronization of the receiver.
• SFD (Start Frame Delimiter)
Start character consisting of the bit pattern “10101011” showing the
recipient that the actual information will follow now.
• DA (Destination Address)
Evaluated by the recipient‘s address filter; only data frames destined for
this recipient will be passed on to the communication software.
• SA (Source Address)
Sender‘s address
• LEN (Length)
Indicates the length of the subsequent data field in Bytes according to
IEEE 802.3.
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Ethernet frame
• Data and Pad
The data field may contain 46 to 1500 user data bytes. Are there less than
46 bytes the Ethernet controller independently adds padding bytes, until the
total amount (data + pad) is 46. This miminum length is crucial for the
CSMA/CD procedure to work faultlessly. The data field can be used at will, it
only has to contain complete bytes.
• FCS (Frame Check Sequence)
A check character. It is obtained by taking the rest of the division operation
from the formula representing the wide-spread cyclic- redundancy-check
procedure. This formula is applied to the bit sequence including the address
field through to the padding field. In case of en error the whole frame is
ignored, i.e. not passed on to the application program.
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Extension
• The maximum extension depends on the medium and
the transmission rate; here some examples:
– 10base5 Segment: 500m
Total: 2500m (with 4 repeaters)
– 100baseTX UTP Hub-Station: 100m
– 100baseFX Hub-Station: 400m
25km (with Mono mode fibre)
– 1000baseSX Hub-Station: 550m
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Characteristics of the switches
• Cut-Trough Switch
– noc cheking of the data frames
• Store-and-Forward
– checking of the data frames
• Frames with same destination
– kept in internal short term memory thus queueing them
– discard them or create collision
• Broadcast messages
– go to all stations anyway (z.B. ARP) so switches are of
no advantage here
– there are specific approaches of different switch
manufacturers to reduce broadcast data traffic
After the second collision all station choose a random waiting time of 9,6µs plus [0, 1, 2, or 3] times 51,2µs. With two stations having created the collision the probability for success will now be 75%.
All stations memorize the number of consecutive collisions and double the number of waiting times to randomly choose from. After the third collision that means 9,6µs plus [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7] times 51,2µs. After 15 consecutive collisions the algorithms cancels the transmission. Now it is the task of the superior communications software to decide further actions (e.g. renewed transmission).
The algorithm descibed is called “Truncated Binary Exponential Backoff Algorithm, BEB”, short „Back-Off Algorithm“. The desciption of the algorithm makes clear, that in extreme cases there can be substantial delays in the transmission, it can even happen that the telegram is not transmitted after all.
Repeater
The repeater does not regard any protocol information, but simply amplifies the signal to allow longer distances for networks. It can also be used to switch between media, e.g. from copper to fibre optics. A repeater with several ports is called hub.
Bridges
A bridge connects two or more networks and exchanges data packages between them. Since a bridge operates on level 2 of the OSI model it is independent from higher level protocols (e.g. TCP/IP). Bridges are intelligent devices, which are monitoring the complete traffic. Depending on the telegrams MAC address in combination with internal address tables they decide if the telegram will be forwarded or ignored.
Switch
Switches, also named “Switching Hubs” or “Layer 2 Switches”, are improved brigdes. Switches are nothing but Bridges with several ports, why they are also called “Multiport-Bridge”. Each port of a switch can be regrded as a collision domain of its own. Collision between devices connected to a switch can so be excluded. As opposed to the hub, which reads, amplifies and then distributes the telegrams on all ports, the switch reads the telegrams, checks the destination address and then forwards the telegram only to the port the destination device is attached to.Defective telegrams will not be forwarded at all.
The information, which device is located on which port, is gathered by the switch by analyzing the telegrams‘ source addresses. Thus it creates a table containing the relevant information about each station‘s location.
Switches are capable of dealing with a bigger amount of data without experiencing the collisions-related delays that occur when using hubs. Hubs can be replaced by switches in order to enhance the performance of the network.
To be able to maintain several connections at the same time a switch internally processes data much faster than they are arriving at the ports or being sent out. A switch that is labeled “Nonblocking” has an internal transmission rate corresponding to the sum of all maximum transmission speeds at the ports. For a 10/100MBit/s Switch (suitable for 10 as well as 100MBit/s) with 8 ports that means that – taking into account the full-duplex mode (will be explained later-on) - it has to offer an internal transmission speed of 1600MBit/s (100MBit/s * 8 Ports *2 [due to full-duplex]). This level of performance is normally not required and also too expensive. An internal speed of 800MBit/s is normally sufficient for such a switch, which will then be called “Blocking Switch”. In addition to the high internal apeed the switches offer a short-term memory to temporarily buffer telegrams arriving at the same time and determined for the same destination port.
Nowadays most STP and UTP-wirings are realized with RJ45 connectors, also called Western connectors. The pinning of those connectors is standardized (compliant to IEC, DIN etc.), where the pairs are identical in each standard, but the colours can differ.