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LESSON 21
DESCRIPTION OF NETWORK PROTOCOLS
Introduction to ATM
ATM networks provide a unified communication infrastructure
capable of carrying telecommunication, video communication,
and data communication between users around the globe.
ATM network technology is characterized by cell switching.
ATM is a standard form of cell switching based on 53-byte cells.
Cell-switching networks provide the quality of both the current
telephone networks, which use circuit switching, and the current
data networks, which use packet switching.
ATM networks feature:
Controlled communications delay (latency)
Controlled communications delay, or latency, is inherent to
ATM networks. This feature is due to the small cell size of
53 bytes, controller cell buffering, and high line speeds.
Scalable over physical size, speed, and node count
ATM networks can be scaled geographically. Because ATM
networks can be scaled indefinitely, they tend to eliminate the
distinction between LANs and WANs.
Bandwidth on demand
Data can be delivered at various rates, as desired. All LANs
provide this capability now.
Virtual circuit multiplexing
Virtual circuit multiplexing allows many dialogs to occur
simultaneously over a single physical interface. This provides
greater flexibility and simplicity than traditional telephone
networks because more than a single call can be placed on a
single physical interface.
ATM Network Operation
An ATM network consists of a set of ATM switches intercon-
nected by point-to-point ATM links or interfaces. ATM
switches support two kinds of interfaces: user-network
interfaces (UNI) and network-node interfaces*1* (NNI). UNI
connect ATM end-systems (hosts, routers, and so on) to an
ATM switch*2*, while an NNI may be imprecisely defined as an
interface connecting two ATM switches together; slightly
different cell formats are defined across UNI and NNI*3*. More
precisely, however, an NNI is any physical or logical link across
which two ATM switches exchange the NNI protocol*4*.
The ATM Relates to the Lowest Two Layers of the
OSI Reference Model :
The ATM architecture uses a logical model to describe the
functionality that it supports. ATM functionality corresponds
to the physical layer and part of the data link layer of the OSI
reference model.
The ATM reference model is composed of the following
planes, which span all layers:
ControlThis plane is responsible for generating and
managing signaling requests.
UserThis plane is responsible for managing the transfer
of data.
ManagementThis plane contains two components:
o Layer management manages layer-specific functions,
such as the detection of failures and protocol
problems.
o Plane management manages and coordinates functions
related to the complete system.
The ATM reference model is composed of the following ATM
layers:
Physical layerAnalogous to the physical layer of the OSI
reference model, the ATM physical layer manages the
medium-dependent transmission.
ATM layerCombined with the ATM adaptation layer, the
ATM layer is roughly analogous to the data link layer of the
OSI reference model. The ATM layer is responsible for the
simultaneous sharing of virtual circuits over a physical link
(cell multiplexing) and passing cells through the ATM
network (cell relay). To
do this, it uses the
VPI and VCI
information in the
header of each ATM
cell.
ATM adaptation
layer (AAL)
Combined with the
ATM layer, the AAL is
roughly analogous to
the data link layer of
the OSI model. The
AAL is responsible for
isolating higher-layer
Figure : ATM Network Interfaces
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protocols from the details of the ATM processes. The
adaptation layer prepares user data for conversion into cells
and segments the data into 48-byte cell payloads.
Finally, the higher layers residing above the AAL accept user
data, arrange it into packets, and hand it to the AAL. Illustrates
the ATM reference model.
Figure : Relation to OSI Reference Model :
The ATM Physical Layer
The ATM physical layer has four functions: Cells are converted
into a bitstream, the transmission and receipt of bits on the
physical medium are controlled, ATM cell boundaries are
tracked, and cells are packaged into the appropriate types of
frames for the physical medium. For example, cells are packaged
differently for SONET than for DS-3/ E-3 media types.
The ATM physical layer is divided into two parts: the physical
medium-dependent (PMD) sublayer and the transmission
convergence (TC) sublayer.
The PMD sublayer provides two key functions. First, it
synchronizes transmission and reception by sending and
receiving a continuous flow of bits with associated timing
information. Second, it specifies the physical media for the
physical medium used, including connector types and cable.
Examples of physical medium standards for ATM include
Synchronous Digital Hierarchy/ Synchronous Optical Network
(SDH/ SONET), DS-3/ E3, 155 Mbps over multimode fiber
(MMF) using the 8B/ 10B encoding scheme, and 155 Mbps 8B/
10B over shielded twisted-pair (STP) cabling.
The TC sublayer has four functions: cell delineation, header
error control (HEC) sequence generation and verification, cell-
rate decoupling, and transmission frame adaptation. The cell
delineation function maintains ATM cell boundaries, allowing
devices to locate cells within a stream of bits. HEC sequence
generation and verification generates and checks the header error
control code to ensure valid data. Cell-rate decoupling maintains
synchronization and inserts or suppresses idle (unassigned)
ATM cells to adapt the rate of valid ATM cells to the payload
capacity of the transmission system. Transmission frame
adaptation packages ATM cells into frames acceptable to the
particular physical layer implementation.
ATM Adaptation Layers
AAL, a connection-oriented service, is suitable for handling
constant bit rate sources (CBR), such as voice and
videoconferencing. ATM transports CBR traffic using circuit-
emulation services. Circuit-emulation service also
accommodates the attachment of equipment currently using
leased lines to an ATM backbone network. AAL1 requires
timing synchronization between the source and the destination.
For this reason, AAL depends on a medium, such as SONET,
that supports clocking.
The AAL process prepares a cell for transmission in three steps.
First, synchronous samples (for example, 1 byte of data at a
sampling rate of 125 microseconds) are inserted into the
Payload field. Second, Sequence Number (SN) and Sequence
Number Protection (SNP) fields are added to provide informa-
tion that the receiving AAL1 uses to verify that it has received
cells in the correct order. Third, the remainder of the Payload
field is filled with enough single bytes to equal 48 bytes
illustrates how AAL prepares a cell for transmission.
ATM Switch
Asynchronous Transfer Mode(ATM) switches provide high-speed
switching and scalable bandwidths in the workgroup, the
enterprise network backbone, and the wide area. ATM switches
support voice, video, and data applications, and are designed to
switch fixed-size information units called cells, which are used in
ATM communications. Figure below illustrates an enterprise
network comprised of multiple LANs interconnected across an
ATM backbone.
Figure : Multi-LAN Networks Can Use an ATM-Based
Backbone When Switching Cells
Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX)
IPX, the protocol most often associated with NetWare, resides
at the bottom-most layer of the stack, and provides the
network functions for the rest of the suite. IPX tracks the
various network segments available on the network, and directs
the delivery of data accordingly.
IPX addresses are 64-bit, hexadecimal strings. They are based on
a combination of a manually-defined network number and the
unique hardware signature of the devices on the network. Most
of the time, the network portion of the address is assigned by a
NetWare server or router, and the clients simply read the
network number during startup. If no local NetWare server
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exists, then a router may be configured to seed the network,
or clients can be assigned a network address manually.
Figure : IPX uses a two-part address consisting of a
network address (determined by a server or router) and
workstation addresses (which are the hardware addresses
of the network adapters).
The complete IPX address is made of the network and node
addresses combined. For example, the complete IPX address of
the NetWare server in above Figure is 00000001:000094058968.
IPX does not guarantee delivery, or provide error-correction
services. These functions are left to the transport protocols like
SPX and PEP.
Because the node addresses are actually the hardware addresses
of the network adapter, systems can communicate directly
without having to locate the hardware address first. If a
destination system is on the local network segment, then IPX
packets are handed directly to it. If the destination system is on
a remote network, the data is handed to a router for delivery.
Novell adapted IPX from the Xerox* Network System (XNS*)
Internet Datagram Protocol (IDP). IPX is a connectionless
datagram protocol. Connectionless means that when a process
running on a particular node uses IPX to communicate with a
process on another node, no connection between the two
nodes is established. Thus, IPX packets are addressed and sent
to their destinations, but there is no guarantee or verification of
successful delivery. Any packet acknowledgment or connection
control is provided by protocols above IPX, such as SPX.
Datagram means that each packet is treated as an individual
entity, having no logical or sequential relation to any other
packet.
IPX operates at the OSI Network layer. As a Network-layer
protocol, IPX addresses and routes packets from one location
to another on an IPX internetwork. IPX bases its routing
decisions on the address fields in its header and on the informa-
tion it receives from RIP or NLSP. IPX uses this information to
forward packets to their destination node or to the next router
providing a path to the destination node.
IPX Packet Structure
The IPX packet is similar to an XNS IDP packet and comprises
two parts:
A 30-byte IPX header, which includes the network, node,
and socket addresses for both the destination and the source
A data section, which often includes the header of a higher-
level protocol, such as SPX
The minimum IPX packet sizeexcluding the MAC headeris
30 bytes (IPX header only). Historically, the maximum size of
routed IPX packets has been 576 bytes (IPX header and data).
Until recently, all routed IPX packets were between 30 and 576
bytes. However, the IPX protocol has always allowed packet
sizes up to 65,535 bytes.
The following describes the IPX packet fields:
ChecksumPacket integrity check.
Packet LengthLength, in bytes, of the complete packet,
which is the length of the IPX header plus the length of the
data.
Transport Control-Number of routers a packet has
traversed on the way to its
destination.
Packet TypeType of service offered or required by the
packet.
Destination NetworkNumber of the network to which
the destination node is attached.
Destination NodePhysical address of the destination
node.
Destination SocketSocket address of the packet
destination process.
Source NetworkNumber of the network to which the
source node is attached.
Source NodePhysical address of the source node.
Source SocketSocket address of the process that transmits
the packet.
Higher-Level Protocol HeadersHeaders of higher-level
NetWare protocols, such as NCP or SPX. These headers
occupy the data portion of the IPX packet.
Sequenced Packet Exchange (SPX)
SPX is a reliable transport protocol that uses IPX for delivery.
Since IPX is a true network protocol that offers no reliability
by itself, applications that use the network must have some
form of reliable transport, which is a service provided by SPX.
Examples of these applications might include a client-server
database, or a server-based virus-protection product. Rather
than have the client application read and write data to a file on
the servers volume, the client application speaks to a server-
based application using tokenized commands sent over SPX.
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Figure :Using SPX, network applications can communicate
directly. This allows fax servers, database servers, backup
servers and other network services to perform quickly.
SPX achieves this connectivity through virtual circuits, which
provides an application-to-application connection across IPX.
SPX does not perform error-checking and acknowledgment
services for every packet sent or received, but instead acknowl-
edges all the packets it has received within a certain window.
If an error is discovered in any packet sent or received within
that window, then all of the packets sent or received during that
time are flagged as bad and are retransmitted.
Since most of the networks that use IPX and SPX are local
LANs that have high levels of reliability, this window technique
allows large amounts of data to flow quickly with little risk of
corruption. Therefore, the wholesale marking of bad packets
within a window does not occur very often, and is a good way
to get extra performance from the network.
SPX is a connection-oriented protocol that operates at the OSI
Transport layer. Connection-oriented means that when a node
uses SPX to communicate with another node, a dedicated
connection is established between the two nodes. This connec-
tion must be established before the nodes can exchange packets.
SPX guarantees delivery of packets to their destination and
delivers them in their proper sequence. IPX gives only its best
effort to deliver packets and delivers them in any order.
Although SPX guarantees delivery of every packet it sends, it is
slower than IPX. The SPX header includes the IPX header30
bytesbut adds an additional 12 bytes of sequencing, flow
control, connection, and acknowledgment information.
Summary
Token Ring technology was developed in the 1970s by IBM.
Token-passing networks move a small frame, called a token,
around the network. Possession of the token grants the right
to transmit. If a node receiving the token has no information
to send, it passes the token to the next end station. Each
station can hold the token for a maximum period of time.
If a station possessing the token does have information to
transmit, it seizes the token, alters 1 bit of the token (which
turns the token into a start-of-frame sequence), appends the
information that it wants to transmit, and sends this informa-
tion to the next station on the ring.
A protocol analyzer is a tool that listens to network packets on a
shared segment and decodes them into human-readable format.
There are two types of protocol analyzers: packet analyzers and
statistical analyzers. Freeware and commercial packet analyzers
are available. The neat thing about packet analyzers is that they
run on most PCs if you have the right type of network card
that is, a promiscuous network card, which is able to listen to
all network packets.
Depending on the analyzer, you can expect to see many
functions that will help you analyze the raw data that the
analyzer captures. Some of these functions include capture
filtering, sortable statistical displays, expert analysis of data,
and customizable views.
Theres more than one analyzer available on the market because
theres more than one problem out there. Different analyzers are
good for various things, and some analyzers have better
decodes of certain protocols.
Knowing what and when to filter is a really important part of
learning how to use an analyzer. After you learn how to take
small manageable trace files, youll be able to quickly go through
them and find what you need in order to vanquish your
problemsor to entice your vendor to help out.
The chapter began with an overview of the Ethernet technol-
ogy, the network building blocks, and Ethernets relationship to
the ISO seven-layer reference model. The requirements for MAC
and PHY compatibility also were introduced.
The basic MAC responsibilities were defined:
Data encapsulationAssembling the frame into the
defined format before transmission begins, and
disassembling the frame after it has been received and
checked for transmission errors.
Media access controlIn the required CSMA/ CD half-
duplex mode, and in the optional full-duplex mode.
Two optional MAC capability extensions and their associated
frame formats were discussed. The VLAN tagging option
allows network nodes to be defined with logical as well as
physical addresses, and provides a means to assign transmission
priorities on a frame-by-frame basis. A specific format for the
pause frame, which is used for short-term link flow control, is
defined in the standard but was not covered here because it is
automatic MAC capability that is invoked as needed to prevent
input buffer overrun.
The PHY layer discussions included descriptions of the
signaling procedures and media requirements/ limitations for
the following:
10Base-T
100Base-TX, 100Base-T4, and 100Base-T2
1000Base-T, 1000Base-CX, 1000Base-LX, and 1000Base-SX
Although 100Base-FX was not specifically discussed, it uses the
same signaling procedure as 100Base-TX, but over optical fiber
media rather than UTP copper.
The remaining sections of the chapter were devoted to systems
considerations for both twisted-pair and optical fiber LAN
implementations:
Link crossover requirements in UTP networks
Matching of PMDs and network media to ensure desired
datarates
Use of link aggregation to create higher-speed logical trunks
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Implementation of multispeed networks
After essentially finishing the chapter, you should have a
reasonable working knowledge of the Ethernet protocol and
network technology. The next section should help determine
whether you need to go back and reread the chapter.
Review Questions
Q Shouldnt all 10Base-T networks just be upgraded to 100
Mbps? Why or why not?
Q Which 100Base version(s) are recommended? Why?
Q Which 1000Base version(s) are recommended? Where would
they be used?
Q What cable types should be used for new networks? For
upgrading existing networks? Why?
Q How do you know when a network needs to be upgraded?
Where do you start?
Q Token Ring networks differ from Ethernet networks in what
ways?
Q For what types of applications is this beneficial?
Q Name the four components of LANE.
Q Which LANE component maintains an ATM ARP table?
Q Which LANE component maintains policy for ELAN
membership?
Q List two functions of PNNI.
Q Which field in the ATM header checks the header integrity?
Q What is the primary difference between the UNI header and
the NNI header?
Q Which adaptation mode is most appropriate to interconnect
T1 signals from PBXs over ATM?
Q Which adaptation mode is most frequently implemented for
data transport over ATM?
Q What VCI value is reserved for call setup requests from an
ATM edge device?
Q What ATM protocol simplifies the ATM administrators life
by automatically ensuring that certain ATM parameters are
compatible between two devices connected to the same link?
Q What ATM protocol communicates exclusively between
ATM switches?
Q Describe the difference between PVC and SVC.
Q What is the purpose of the adaptation layer?
Q What advantage is there to implementing MPOA?