Assignment: Data

Communication

Topic: Switched and IP Networks

Class: MCS 1st

Submission date: 04-April-2018

Submitted to: Sir Waqas Malik

Submitted by: Fajar Chaudhary

What is an IP Network?
Networks provide communication between computing devices. To communicate properly, all computer
(hosts) on a network need to use the same communication protocols. An Internet Protocol network is a
network of computer using Internet Protocol for their communication protocol.
All computer within an IP network must have an IP address that uniquely identifies that individual host.
An Internet Protocol-based network (an IP Network) is a group of hosts that share a common physical
connection and that use Internet Protocol for network layer communication. The IP addresses in an IP
network are contiguous, that is, one address follows right after the other with no gaps.

Address Types in an IP Network

Within a given range of IP addresses used in every IP network are special addresses reserved for

Host Addresses

Network Addresses

Broadcast Addresses

In addition, a IP network has a subnet mask. The subnet mask is a value stored one each computer that
allows that computer to identify which IP addresses are within the network to which they are attached,
and which IP addresses are on an outside network.

Host address
A host's IP address is the address of a specific host on an IP network. All hosts on a network must have a
unique IP address. This IP address is usually not the first or the last IP address in the range of network IP
addresses as the first IP address and last IP address in the range of IP addresses are reserved for special
functions. The host addresses are all the addresses in the IP network range of IP addresses except the
first and last IP addresses. Host IP addresses allow network hostst to establish one-to-one direct
communication. This one-to-one communication is referred to as unicast communication.

All host IP addresses can be split into two parts: a network part and a host part. The network part of the
IP addresses identifies the IP Network the host is a member of. The host part uniquely identifies an
individual host.

Network Address
The network address is the first IP address in the range of IP addresses. To be more precise, the network
address is the address in which all binary bits in the host portion of the IP address are set to zero. The
purpose of the Network Address is to allow hosts that provide special network services to communicate.
In practice, the network address is rarely used for communication.

Broadcast Address
The broadcast IP address is the last IP address in the range of IP addresses. To be more precise, the
broadcast address is the IP address in which all binary bits in the host portion of the IP address are set to
one. The broadcast address is reserved and allows a single host to make an announcement to all hosts
on the network. This is called broadcast communication and the last address in a network is used for
broadcasting to all hosts because it is the address where the host portion is all ones. This special address
also sometimes called the all hosts address. Some vendors allow you to set an address other than the
last address as the broadcast address.

Note that each network has its own network and broadcast addresses. Network addresses do not
necessarilly have a zero in the decimal representation of the host portion of their address

HOW IT WORKS
Your computer uses a a mask in its network connection that allows it to determine whether the
computer it wants to talk to over the local network is actaully on the local network or on a network
outside the local network. If it is a computer that is local, it will use a local protocol to find the other
computer's hardware address. If the other computer is not local (it is outside the local network), then it
will send the data to the local gateway (usually called the default gateway). Your computer will try to
determine the hardware address of the local default gateway and will use the hardware address in the
Ethernet header (or FDDI header or Token Ring header etc.). The Ethernet frame will contain a payload
which will be filled with IP data. The IP address of the remote computer will be in this payload as part of
the IP header. Since the IP address in the IP datagram is the remote computer, but the Ethernet frame is
addressed to the local default gateway, the default gateway will accept the Ethernet frame, read the IP
data, verify the IP address is indeed outside the local network and then forward the IP datagram over
whatever other network connections the computer has that will allow it to reach all the other outside
networks. That's how Internet Protocol makes routing work in a network with a default gateway.

Network switch
A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, officially MAC bridge) is a computer
networking device that connects devices together on a computer network by using packet switching to
receive, process, and forward data to the destination device.

A network switch is a multiport network bridge that uses hardware addresses to process and forward
data at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model. Some switches can also process data at the network
layer (layer 3) by additionally incorporating routing functionality. Such switches are commonly known as
layer-3 switches or multilayer switches.
Switches for Ethernet are the most common form of network switch. The first Ethernet switch was
introduced by Kalpana in 1990.Switches also exist for other types of networks including Fibre Channel,
Asynchronous Transfer Mode, and InfiniBand.

A switch is a device in a computer network that connects together other devices. Multiple data cables
are plugged into a switch to enable communication between different networked devices. Switches
manage the flow of data across a network by transmitting a received network packet only to the one or
more devices for which the packet is intended. Each networked device connected to a switch can be
identified by its network address, allowing the switch to direct the flow of traffic maximizing the security
and efficiency of the network.

A switch is more intelligent than an Ethernet hub, which simply retransmits packets out of every port of
the hub except the port on which the packet was received, unable to distinguish different recipients, and
achieving an overall lower network efficiency.

An Ethernet switch operates at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model to create a separate collision
domain for each switch port. Each device connected to a switch port can transfer data to any of the
other ports at any time and the transmissions will not interfere. Because broadcasts are still being
forwarded to all connected devices by the switch, the newly formed network segment continues to be a
broadcast domain. Switches may also operate at higher layers of the OSI model, including the network
layer and above. A device that also operates at these higher layers is known as a multilayer switch.

Segmentation involves the use of a switch to split a larger collision domain into smaller ones in order to
reduce collision probability, and to improve overall network throughput. In the extreme case (i.e. micro-
segmentation), each device is located on a dedicated switch port. In contrast to an Ethernet hub, there is
a separate collision domain on each of the switch ports. This allows computers to have dedicated
bandwidth on point-to-point connections to the network and also to run in full-duplex mode. Full-duplex
mode has only one transmitter and one receiver per collision domain, making collisions impossible.

The network switch plays an integral role in most modern Ethernet local area networks (LANs). Mid-to-
large sized LANs contain a number of linked managed switches. Small office/home office (SOHO)
applications typically use a single switch, or an all-purpose device such as a residential gateway to access
small office/home broadband services such as DSL or cable Internet. In most of these cases, the end-user
device contains a router and components that interface to the particular physical broadband technology.
User devices may also include a telephone interface for Voice over IP (VoIP).

Role of switches in a network

Switches are most commonly used as the network connection point for hosts at the edge of a network.
In the hierarchical internetworking model and similar network architectures, switches are also used
deeper in the network to provide connections between the switches at the edge.

In switches intended for commercial use, built-in or modular interfaces make it possible to connect
different types of networks, including Ethernet, Fibre Channel, RapidIO, ATM, ITU. This connectivity can
be at any of the layers mentioned. While the layer-2 functionality is adequate for bandwidth-shifting
within one technology, interconnecting technologies such as Ethernet and token ring is performed more
easily at layer 3 or via routing. Devices that interconnect at the layer 3 are traditionally called routers, so
layer 3 switches can also be regarded as relatively primitive and specialized routers.

Where there is a need for a great deal of analysis of network performance and security, switches may be
connected between WAN routers as places for analytic modules. Some vendors provide firewall, network
intrusion detection, and performance analysis modules that can plug into switch ports. Some of these
functions may be on combined modules.

Through port mirroring, a switch can create a mirror image of data that can go to an external device such
as intrusion detection systems and packet sniffers.

A modern switch may implement power over Ethernet (PoE), which avoids the need for attached
devices, such as a VoIP phone or wireless access point, to have a separate power supply. Since switches
can have redundant power circuits connected to uninterruptible power supplies, the connected device
can continue operating even when regular office power fails.

In half duplex mode, each switch port can only either receive from or transmit to its connected device at
a certain time. In full duplex mode, each switch port can simultaneously transmit and receive, assuming
the connected device also supports full duplex mode.