ECEN 602

Lecture #2 Resource Sharing, Common

Network Services, and Network Architecture

Pierce Cantrell
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Outline

Cost Effective Resource Sharing

Support for Common Network Services
Network Architecture protocols,
interfaces, encapsulation, OSI, The
Internet or internet

Lecture 2 ECEN 602

 Cost-Effective Resource
Sharing

Resource: links and nodes

How to share a link?
Multiplexing and De-
multiplexing to share a link
Types of Multiplexing
Synchronous Time-division
Multiplexing multiple logical flows Multiplexing
over a single physical link Time slots: data transmitted in
predetermined slots
Baudots printing Digital, circuit-switched
telegraph, 1874. telephone T1 Carrier,
Once an operator
presses keys, they
Frequency Division
are locked down Multiplexing
after an audible Non-overlapping frequency
warning click and bands
then unlocked. Up to
four operators Pre-digital telephone system,
sharing a single Optical DWDM, Cable
telegraph line modems (DOCSIS 3.0 and
synchronously. earlier)
http://www.samhallas.co.uk/telhist1/telehist2.htm
 Cost-Effective Resource
Sharing
Statistical Multiplexing
A switch multiplexing packets from
multiple sources onto one shared
link
Time-division, but on
demand rather than fixed
Reschedule link on a per-
packet basis
Packets from different
sources interleaved on the
link
Buffer packets that are
contending for the link
Packet queue may be
processed FIFO, but not
necessarily
Buffer overflow leads to
congestion
How not to multiplex

Baltimore, Maryland New York City, 1890, Broadway

Support for Common Services

Logical Channels
Application-to-Application communication path or a
pipe

Process communicating over an

abstract channel
 Common Communication
Patterns
Clients and Servers
Clients request access (e.g., PuTTY SSH/Telnet
program on your workstation to access a remote
server)
Server provides the access (e.g., SSH server on Linux
server)
Two common types of process-to-process
channels
Request/Reply Channels for file access such as Web
pages, PuTTY, and FTP
Message Stream Channels for real-time applications
such as audio and video streaming, VoIP, H.323 video
conferencing, and LOLA

Lecture 2 ECEN 602

 Reliability

What goes wrong with a network?

Bits are lost
Bit errors (1 to a 0, and vice versa)
Burst errors several consecutive errors
Hopefully you detect the error(s)
Packets are lost (Congestion)
Link, switch, router failures
Fiber is cut during construction
Packets are delayed
Packets are delivered out-of-order
Third parties eavesdrop
Network equipment is configured wrong
Key Problem is to fill the gap between what
applications expect and what the underlying
technology provides

Lecture 2 ECEN 602

TAMU Fiber Melt Down Due to Steam
Pipe Break in Dec. 2011

Lecture 2 ECEN 602

Network Architecture

Example of a layered network system

 Network Architecture

Layered system with alternative abstractions available at a given layer

 Protocols

A Protocol defines the interface between layers

on the same system (i.e., service interface) and
with the corresponding layer of a peer system
(i.e., peer-to-peer interface).
Building blocks of a network architecture
Each protocol object has two different interfaces
service interface: operations on this protocol
peer-to-peer interface: messages exchanged with peer
Term protocol is overloaded
specification of peer-to-peer interface
module that implements this interface

Lecture 2 ECEN 602

Interfaces

Service and Peer Interfaces

 Protocols

Protocol Specification: prose, pseudo-code,

state transition diagram
Interoperable protocol: when two or more
protocols implement the specification
accurately
IETF: Internet Engineering Task Force

Lecture 2 ECEN 602

Protocol Graph

Example of a protocol graph: nodes are the protocols and

links the depends-on relation
Encapsulation

High-level messages are encapsulated inside of low-level messages

OSI Architecture

The OSI 7-layer Model

OSI Open Systems Interconnection
 Description of Layers

Physical Layer
Handles the transmission of raw bits over a communication link
Data Link Layer
Collects a stream of bits into a larger aggregate called a frame
Network adaptor along with a device driver in an OS
implements the protocol in this layer
Frames are actually delivered to hosts
Network Layer
Handles routing among nodes within a packet-switched network
Unit of data exchanged between nodes in this layer is called a
packet

The lower three layers are implemented on all network nodes

Lecture 2 ECEN 602

 Description of Layers

Transport Layer
Implements a process-to-process channel
Unit of data exchanges in this layer is called a message
Session Layer
Provides a name space that is used to tie together the
potentially different transport streams that are part of a single
application
Presentation Layer
Concerned about the format of data exchanged between
peers
Application Layer
Standardize common type of exchanges

The transport layer and the higher layers typically run only on
end-hosts and not on the intermediate switches and routers
Lecture 2 ECEN 602
Internet Architecture

Alternative view of the Internet

architecture. The sub-network
layer is most often referred to
as the link layer.
In many networks, there is a
sub-layer of the link layer known
Internet Protocol Graph as the Media Access Control
(MAC), e.g., Ethernet and Wi-Fi
 Internet Architecture

Defined by IETF
Three main features
Does not imply strict layering. The application is free to
bypass the defined transport layers and to directly use IP or
other underlying networks
An hour-glass shape wide at the top, narrow in the middle
and wide at the bottom. IP serves as the focal point for the
architecture
In order for a new protocol to be officially included in the
architecture, there needs to be both a protocol specification
and at least one (and preferably two) representative
implementations of the specification

Lecture 2 ECEN 602