L2 Switching Basics

L2 switching allows packets to be switched in the network based on their Media Access Control (MAC) address. When a packet arrives at the switch, the switch checks the packet's destination MAC address and, if known, sends the packet to the output port from which it learned the destination MAC. The two fundamental elements in Ethernet L2 switching are the MAC address and the virtual LAN (VLAN). In the same way that IP routing references stations on the networks via an L3 IP address, Ethernet L2 switching references end stations via the MAC address. However, unlike IP, in which IP addresses are assigned by administrators and can be reused in different private networks, MAC addresses are supposed to be unique, because they are indicative of the hardware itself. Thus, MAC addresses should not be assigned by the network administrator. (Of course, in some cases the MAC addresses can be overwritten or duplicated, but this is not the norm.) Ethernet is a broadcast medium. Without the concept of VLANs, a broadcast sent by a station on the LAN is sent to all physical segments of the switched LAN. The VLAN concept allows the segmentation of the LAN into logical entities, and traffic is localized within those logical entities. For example, a university campus can be allocated multiple VLANsone dedicated for faculty, one dedicated for students, and the third dedicated for visitors. Broadcast traffic within each of these VLANs is isolated to that VLAN. Figure 3-1 shows the concept of an Ethernet LAN using a hub (Part A) and an Ethernet switch (Part B). With an Ethernet hub, all stations on the LAN share the same physical segment. A 10-Mbps hub, for example, allows broadcast and unicast traffic between the stations that share the 10-Mbps bandwidth. The switched LAN on the right allows each segment a 100-Mbps connection (for this example), and it segments the LAN into two logical domains, VLAN 10 and VLAN 20. The concept of VLANs is independent of the stations themselves. The VLAN is an allocation by the switch. In this example, ports 1 and 2 are allocated to VLAN 10, while ports 3 and 4 are allocated to VLAN 20. When stations A1 and A2 send traffic, the switch tags the traffic with the VLAN assigned to the interface and makes the switching decisions based on that VLAN number. The result is that traffic within a VLAN is isolated from traffic within other VLANs.

SCTP is designed to transport PSTN signaling messages over IP networks, but is capable of broader applications. SCTP is a reliable transport protocol operating on top of a connectionless packet network such as IP. It offers the following services to its users: Acknowledged error-free non-duplicated transfer of user data. Data fragmentation to conform to discovered path MTU size. Sequenced delivery of user messages within multiple streams, with an option for order-of-arrival delivery of individual user messages. Optional bundling of multiple user messages into a single SCTP packet. Network-level fault tolerance through supporting of multi-homing at either or both ends of an association. SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol) is a protocolfor transmitting multiple streams of data at the same time between two end points that have established a connectionin a network. Sometimes referred to as "next generation TCP" (Transmission Control Protocol) - or TCPng, SCTP is designed to make it easier to support a telephone connection over the Internet (and specifically to support the telephone system's Signaling System 7 - SS7 - on an Internet connection). A telephone connection requires that signaling information (which controls the connection) be sent along with voice and other data at the same time. SCTP also is intended to make it easier to manage connections over a wirelessnetwork and to manage the transmission of multimedia data. SCTP is a standard protocol (RFC 2960) developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

Like TCP, SCTP manages "reliable transport" (ensuring the complete arrival of data units that are sent over the network) over the Internet's basically connectionlessInternet Protocol (IP), the protocol responsible for moving the data but not for managing whether all the data arrives. Unlike TCP, SCTP ensures the complete concurrent transmission of several streams of data (in units called messages) between connected end points. SCTP also supports multihoming, which means that a connected end point can have alternate IP addresses associated with it in order to route around network failure or changing conditions. TCP transmits data in a single stream (sometimes called a bytestream) and guarantees that data will be delivered in sequence to the application or user at the end point. If there is data loss, or a sequencing error, delivery must be delayed until lost data is retransmitted or an out-of-sequence message is received. SCTP's multi-streaming allows data to be delivered in multiple, independent streams, so that if there is data loss in one stream, delivery will not be affected for the other streams. For some transmissions, such as a file or record, sequence preservation is essential. However, for some applications, it is not absolutely necessary to preserve the precise sequence of data. For example, in signaling transmissions, sequence preservation is only necessary for messages that affect the same resource (such as the same channel or call). Because multi-streaming allows data in error-free streams to continue delivery when one stream has an error, the entire transmission is not delayed.

Subnetwork
Creating a subnet by dividing the host identifier A subnetwork, or subnet, is a logically visible subdivision of an IP network.[1] The practice of dividing a network into two or more networks is called subnetting. All computers that belong to a subnet are addressed with a common, identical, most-significant bit-group in their IP address. This results in the logical division of an IP address into two fields, a network or routing prefix and the rest field or host identifier. The rest field is an identifier for a specific host or network interface.
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