Local Area Networks

Y. C. Chen Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering Spring 2005

1. Overview 2. Data Link Layer 3. Medium Access Control of LANs 4. Physical Layer 5. Metropolitan Area Networks 6. Personal Area Networks 7. Quality of Services 8. Security 9. Applications

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Overview
Traditionally, communications networks can be viewed in 3 categories: Wide Area Networks (WANs), which span a very large geographical area, such as from city to city or across countries and oceans. WANs are usually operated by transmission service providers. Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), which span a large area such as a city, or company sites in different locations within the same city. MANs are usually operated by organizations. Local Area Networks (LANs), which span a limited area such as a company complex, a building, a campus, or even a small office. LANs are usually operated by a single organization.

In recent years, the so-called Personal Area Networks (PANs) become more and more popular. This is due to the advance in home broadband access so that multiple stations and peripherals form a small network in a single residential home. Topics regarding LANs, MANs and PANs will be discussed in the class.
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Local Area Networks (LANs)

Local Area Networks are privately-owned networks within a small area, usually a single building or campus of up to a few kilometers. Since it is restricted in size, that means their data transmission time can be known in advance, and the network management would be easier. LAN characteristics are determined by Topologies MAC (Medium Access Control) Transmission media Size of coverage

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Motivations for Local Area Networking

Local area networks are usually privately owned with limited coverage, this means that the underlying network technologies and network services may be freely selected. This leads to network architectures markedly different from those of Wide Area Networks. The growing demand for local area networks is due to technical, economic and organizational factors:
Cost

reductions through sharing of information and databases, resources and network services. Increased information exchange between different departments in an organization, or between individuals. The trend to automate communication and manufacturing process. Improve the community security. Increasing number and variety of intelligent data terminals, PCs and workstations.
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Various Local Area Networks

A local area network is a small group of interconnected workstations and associated devices that share the resources within a small geographic area. Usually, a local area network may serve as few as several users or many more. The nowadays main local area network technologies are: Ethernet (Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, 10G Ethernet) Fiber Channel Hipper LAN Token ring ATM LAN FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) Wireless LAN .. There are also some other technologies such as 100VG, token bus, ARCnet, but those are almost obsolete.
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LAN Approaches
There are two methods of networking computers together, Peer-to-Peer, and Client-Server. The proper method to use depends on the requirements. Peer-to-Peer Networking It offers a quick way to tie all your resources and people together. Users can access information from and share it directly with others in the network. Users can easily share files and directories in a peer-to-peer network.

Client/Server Networking Clients are connected to a centralized server. The server provides centralized security, backup, and recover capability and controls access to sensitive files and expensive peripherals. A dedicated server improves data integrity, because the most current version of a document will be saved in one location. This type of network requires a network operating system.

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LAN Topologies

Bus (Including Tree) All the stations are attached to a common medium, so there may be collision if two or more stations try to transmit at the same time. Traditional Ethernet uses bus topology. Ring All the stations are attached to the same medium which forms a ring structure, however, data from multiple stations may be transmitted upon receiving a token (FDDI, Token Ring, RPR). Ring networks suffer the complexity of token manipulation. Star A switched Ethernet basically uses a star topology. It becomes popular due to the fast growing bandwidth demand, and both bus and ring topologies are hard to be scaled up in bandwidth. Mesh it connects stations in an arbitrary manner. Mesh topology encounters some routing problems which are hard to be accommodated.
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LAN Topologies
Bus Topology Example: Traditional Ethernet

Bus Extender

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LAN Topologies
Hub/Tree (also the bus) Topology Example: 100VG-AnyLAN

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LAN Topologies
Ring Topology

Each station attaches to the network via a repeater Data are transmitted in packets which contains source address and destination address The station will copy the data destined to itself, and the source is responsible for removing the data from the ring Media can be twisted pair, coaxial cable, or optical fiber

Examples: FDDI, Token ring

:
Repeater

: :
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Station
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LAN Topologies
Star Topology Digital Switch Digital PBX (Private Branch eXchange) Switched Ethernet Star Coupler - Passive - Optical fiber, baseband coaxial - Active - Twisted pair

Example: ATM LAN

:
:

: :
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LAN Topologies
Mesh Topology

IBM IBM IBM

IBM

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IBM

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LAN Topologies
Wireless LAN Topologies Infrastructure Fixed-wire replacement Ad hoc

PAU

PAU 10-20 m Server Portable-to-fixed Spring 2005 Network 50-100 m

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LAN Interconnection
Traditional LAN interconnection devices Repeater it operates at OSI layer 1 and transmits data bits over a physical medium. Bridge it operates at OSI layer 2 and is commonly used to connect similar LAN segments. Switch it operates at OSI layer 2 or layer 3 and is used to interconnect multiple similar or dissimilar LANs. Router it operates at OSI layer 3. A router is used to interconnect individual networks whose sizes vary from very small to very large. Routers may be categorized into backbone router (or core router), border router and access router depending on their role in the network.
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Switched LAN
Example: Switched Ethernet Switched Ethernet provides high performance, high bandwidth, and flexibility required for today's LAN. Switches allow different nodes of a network to communicate directly with each other in a smooth and efficient manner, and provide a separate connection for each node in a organization's internal network. Basically, a LAN switch creates a series of instant networks that contain only the two devices communicating with each other at that particular moment. Layer 2 switching provides the dedicated bandwidth and network segmentation critical for directly connecting users to the network, while Layer 3 provides for switching and routing, maximizing speed, bandwidth, and flexibility in the network core or aggregation points. There are three main techniques for Ethernet switching: Store and Forward: Switch receives the full frame to it's memory and then decides what to do with it. Cut Through: Switch makes the decision on re-transmission when it has received the destination MAC address. Fragment Free (Modified Cut Through): Switch makes the decision on re-transmission after it has received the first 64 bytes of the frame.
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LAN Access Methods

Broadcasting In a broadcast LAN, transmitted information will be received by all stations simultaneously. The medium access schemes are random access such as CSMA/CD which may cause contention, and controlled access such as token-passing, in which no contention will occur. Switching In a switched architecture, a switch forward data packets to their destinations that may be a single user station or another LAN segment.

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LAN Selections - Wired

Office automation Universities/hospitals Factory automation Star Closed systems

Ring
Bus Hub/tree ECMA Fiber optic Twisted pair

ISO

IEEE
Wired LAN NBS EIA

Carrier band Headend

Thin-wire
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RF modem CATV Thick-wire EIA: Electrical Industries Association (USA) ECMA: European Computer Manufacturers Association Local Area Networks 18 NBS: National Bureau of Standards

LAN Selections - Wireless

Airports Old buildings Warehouses
Ad hoc Hospitals Retail stores Applications

On-off keying
Pulse-position modulation Multisubcarrier modulation

Infrastructure

Direct modulatio n Transmission Carrier modulation Wireless LAN schemes

Spread spectrum CDMA

Direct Sequence Frequency hopping

Radio

Infrared IEEE

ETSI (Hipper LAN)

CDMA: Code Division Multiple Access ETSI: European Telecom. Standards Institute CSMA/CD: CSMA with Collision Detection FDMA: Frequency Division Multiple Access Spring 2005 Local Area Networks 19 CSMA/CA: CSMA with Collision Avoidance TDMA: Time Division Multiple Access

IEEE LAN Standards

802.1 Higher Layer LAN Protocols
802 Executive Committee 802.10 LAN Security

802.2 Logical Link Control

Data Link Physical

802.3 802.4 802.5 MAC MAC MAC

CSMA/ Token Token Bus Ring CD

802.16 802.17 802.6 802.9 802.11 802.12 802.15 MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC MAC
DQDB Isoc. LAN WLAN Broadband Wireless PAN Access RPR

100VG

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IEEE LAN Standards

802.1 Higher LAN Protocols 802.2 Logical link control (LLC) (No Activity) 802.3 CSMA/CD (Ethernet) 802.4 Token Bus (No Activity) 802.5 Token Ring (No Activity) 802.6 Metropolitan area network (No Activity) 802.7 Broadband technical advisory (No Activity) 802.8 Fiber optic technical advisory (Obsolete) 802.9 Integrated services LAN (No Activity) 802.10 Interoperable LAN Security (No Activity) 802.11 Wireless LAN 802.12 100 VG-AnyLAN (No Activity) 802.14 Cable-TV based broadband (Obsolete) 802.15 Wireless Personal Area Network 802.16 Broadband Wireless Access (WiMAX) 802.17 Resilient Packet Ring (RPR)

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Layers of LAN and OSI Model

OSI LAYERS LAN LAYERS

Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data link Physical Higher layers Logical link control (LLC) Medium access control (MAC) Physical (PHY)

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Outline Structure of a LAN Station

Logical Link Control

LLC
DTE

CSMA/CD Token Reserved MAC AUI: Attachment Unit Interface LLC: Logical Link Control MAC: Medium Access Control MAU: Medium Access Unit PLS: Physical Signaling PMA: Physical Medium Attachment P Physical signaling P AUI PLS

Broadband Baseband Fiber

Physical Medium Attachment PMA MDI

MAU

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Layered Architecture

Regardless the mode of operation of the underlying MAC sublayer CSMA/CD, token ring, wireless - a standard set of user services is defined for use by the LLC sublayer to transfer LLC PDUs to a correspondent layer. These user service primitives are: MA_UNITDATA.request MA_UNITDATA.indication MA_UNITDATA.confirm LLC layer MA_UNITDATA.request MA_UNITDATA.indication MA_UNITDATA.confirm MA_UNITDATA.request
MAC layer

Peer LLC layer

MA_UNITDATA.confirm

MA_UNITDATA.indication

For a CSMA/CD LAN, the confirm primitive indicates that the request has been successfully (or not) transmitted, while for a token LAN it means that the request has been successfully (or not) delivered.
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Layered Architecture
Each service primitive has its associated parameters.
Those

parameters in the MA_UNIDATA.request primitive are - the required destination address (individual, group or broadcast address) - a service data unit (LLC PDU), - and the required class (i.e. priority) of service associated with the PDU. The MA_UNIDATA.confirm primitive includes a parameter that specifies the success or failure of the associated MA_UNIDATA.request primitive. The confirm primitive is not generated as a result of a response from the remote LLC sublayer, but rather by local MAC entity. If the parameter indicates success, this simply shows that the MAC protocol entity was successful in transmitting the service data unit into the network medium. If unsuccessful, the parameter indicates why the transmission attempts failed. For example, excessive collision is a typical failure parameter if it is a CSMA/CD network.
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Layered Architecture
LLC/MAC sublayer interactions LLC protocol is based on the high-level link control (HDLC) protocol, thus it supports two types of user service: connectionless and connection-oriented. Almost all LAN installations use connectionless protocol, therefore the only primitive used is L_DATA.request, and all data is transferred using the unnumbered information (UI) frame. Parameters used for this primitive are source/destination address and user data ( network-layer protocol data unit;NPDU ). Source DTE
Network L_DATA.req (NPDI)
LLC
MA_UNITDATA.req (UI) MA_UNITDATA.ind (UI) MAC layer MAC layer

Destination DTE
LLC

Network

L_DATA.ind (NPDI)
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MA_UNITDATA.req (UI)

Physical medium

MA_UNITDATA.req (UI)

L_DATA.ind (NPDU) L_DATA.req (NPDU)

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Layered Architecture
Interlayer primitives and parameters
Network
NPDU Network protocol entity L_DATA.request DSAP+DA SSAP+SA Service class Length indicator User data(NPDU)

LLC service primitive

LLC

LLC protocol entity LLC PDU DSAP SSAP (NPDU) MA_UNIDATA.req DA SA Service class Length indicator User data(LLC PDU)

Link

MAC service primitive

MAC
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MAC protocol entity Preamble SFD DA SA LLC PDU FCS

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physical layer