CONNECTING DEVICES

We use connecting devices to connect hosts together to make a network or to connect networks
together to make an internet. Connecting devices can operate in different layers of the Internet
model.

There are 3 kinds of connecting devices: 1. Hubs, 2. Link-layer switches, and 3.Routers.

Hubs

A hub is a device that operates only in the physical layer. Signals that carry information within a
network can travel a fixed distance before attenuation. A repeater receives a signal and, before it
becomes too weak or corrupted, regenerates and retimes the original bit pattern and then sends
the refreshed signal.

In the past, Ethernet LANs were using bus topology, a repeater was used to connect two segments of
a LAN to overcome the length restriction of the coaxial cable. Today, Ethernet LANs use star
topology. In a star topology, a repeater is a multiport device, often called a hub.

Hub can be used to serve as the connecting point and at the same time function as a repeater. When
a packet from station A to station B arrives at the hub, the hub forwards the packet to all outgoing
ports except the one from which the signal was received.

The figure definitely shows that a hub does not have a filtering capability;

It does not have the intelligence to find from which port the frame should be sent out. A hub or a
repeater is a physical-layer device. They do not have a link-layer address and they do not check the
link-layer address of the received frame. They just regenerate the corrupted bits and send them out
from every port.
Link-Layer Switches

A link-layer switch (or switch) operates in both the physical and the data-link layers. As a physical-
layer device, it regenerates the signal it receives. As a link-layer device, the link-layer switch can
check the MAC addresses (source and destination) contained in the frame.

What is the difference in functionality is between a link-layer switch and a hub.?

Answer: A link-layer switch has filtering capability.

A Link layer switch can check the destination address of a frame and can decide from which outgoing
port the frame should be sent.

Filtering

• If a frame destined for station 71:2B:13:45:61:42 arrives at port 1,

• The link-layer switch consults its table to find the departing port.

• According to its table, frames for 71:2B:13:45:61:42 should be sent out only through port 2;

• Therefore, there is no need for forwarding the frame through other ports.
Transparent Switches

A transparent switch is a switch in which the stations are completely unaware of the switch’s
existence. If a switch is added or deleted from the system, reconfiguration of the stations is
unnecessary.

According to the IEEE 802.1d specification, a system equipped with transparent switches must meet
three criteria:

❑ Frames must be forwarded from one station to another.

❑ The forwarding table is automatically made by learning frame movements in the network.

❑ Loops in the system must be prevented.

Learning

The earliest switches had switching tables that were static. The system administrator would
manually enter each table entry during switch setup. Although the process was simple, it was not
practical. If a station was added or deleted, the table had to be modified manually. The same was
true if a station’s MAC address changed, which is not a rare event. For example, putting in a new
network card means a new MAC address.

A better solution to the static table is a dynamic table that maps addresses to ports (interfaces)
automatically. To make a table dynamic, we need a switch that gradually learns from the frames
movements. To do this, the switch inspects both the destination and the source addresses in each
frame that passes through the switch. The destination address is used for the forwarding decision
(table lookup); the source address is used for adding entries to the table and for updating purposes.
 • When station A sends a frame to station D, the frame goes out from all three ports; the
frame floods the network.

• However, by looking at the source address, the switch learns that station A must be
connected to port 1.

• This means that frames destined for A, in the future, must be sent out through port 1.

• The switch adds this entry to its table.

• When station D sends a frame to station B, the switch has no entry for B, it adds one more
entry to the table related to station D.

The learning process continues until the table has information about every port. However, the
learning process may take a long time. For example, if a station does not send out a frame (a
rare situation), the station will never have an entry in the table

Loop Problem

Transparent switches work fine as long as there are no redundant switches in the system. Systems
administrators, however, like to have redundant switches (more than one switch between a pair of
LANs) to make the system more reliable. Redundancy can create loops in the system, which is very
undesirable. Loops can be created only when two or more broadcasting LANs (those using hubs, for
example) are connected by more than one switch.
1. Station A sends a frame to station D. The tables of both switches are empty. Both forward the
frame and update their tables based on the source address A.

2. Now there are two copies of the frame on LAN 2. The copy sent out by the left switch is received
by the right switch, which does not have any information about the destination address D; it
forwards the frame.

The copy sent out by the right switch is received by the left switch and is sent out for lack of
information about D.

Note:- Each frame is handled separately because switches, as two nodes on a broadcast network
sharing the medium, use an access method such as CSMA/CD.

3. Now there are two copies of the frame on LAN 1. Step 2 is repeated, and both copies are sent to
LAN2.

4. The process continues on and on. This is called Loop problem

Spanning Tree Algorithm

To solve the looping problem, the IEEE specification requires that switches use the spanning tree
algorithm to create a loopless topology. In graph theory, a spanning tree is a graph in which there is
no loop.

In a switched LAN, this means creating a topology in which each LAN can be reached from any other
LAN through one path only (no loop).

To find the spanning tree, we need to assign a cost (metric) to each arc. The interpretation of the
cost is left up to the systems administrator. We have chosen the minimum hops. However, the hop
count is normally 1 from a switch to the LAN and 0 in the reverse direction.

Steps to find Spanning tree

1. Every switch has a built-in ID (normally the serial number, which is unique). Each switch
broadcasts this ID so that all switches know which one has the smallest ID. The switch with
the smallest ID is selected as the root switch (root of the tree). We assume that switch S1
has the smallest ID. It is, therefore, selected as the root switch.

2. The algorithm tries to find the shortest path (a path with the shortest cost) from the root
switch to every other switch or LAN. The shortest path can be found by examining the total
cost from the root switch to the destination.

3. The combination of the shortest paths creates the shortest tree, which is also shown in
Figure 17.7.

4. Based on the spanning tree, we mark the ports that are part of it, the forwarding ports,
which forward a frame that the switch receives. We also mark those ports that are not part
of the spanning tree, the blocking ports, which block the frames received by the switch
Note that there is only one path from any LAN to any other LAN in the spanning tree system. This
means there is only one path from one LAN to any other LAN. No loops are created. We have
described the spanning tree algorithm as though it required manual entries. This is not true. Each
switch is equipped with a software package that carries out this process dynamically.

Advantages of Switches

1. Collision Elimination

A link-layer switch eliminates the collision. This means increasing the average bandwidth
available to a host in the network. In a switched LAN, there is no need for carrier sensing and
collision detection; each host can transmit at any time.

2. Connecting Heterogenous Devices

A link-layer switch can connect devices that use different protocols at the physical layer (data
rates) and different transmission media.

As long as the format of the frame at the data-link layer does not change, a switch can receive a
frame from a device that uses twisted-pair cable and sends data at 10 Mbps and deliver the
frame to another device that uses fiber-optic cable and can receive data at 100 Mbps.
Routers

A router is a three-layer device; it operates in the physical, data-link, and network layers.As a
physical-layer device, it regenerates the signal it receives. As a link-layer device, the router checks
the physical addresses (source and destination) contained in the packet. As a network-layer device,
a router checks the network-layer addresses. A router can connect networks. In other words, a
router is an internetworking device; It connects independent networks to form an internetwork.

Differences between a router and a switch

1. A router has a physical and logical (IP) address for each of its interfaces.

2. A router acts only on those packets in which the link-layer destination address matches the
address of the interface at which the packet arrives.

3. A router changes the link-layer address of the packet (both source and destination) when it
forwards the packet.

A router, will change the MAC addresses it receives because the MAC addresses have only local
jurisdictions.

VIRTUAL LANs

A station is considered part of a LAN if it physically belongs to that LAN. The criterion of membership
is geographic.

What happens if we need a virtual connection between two stations belonging to two different
physical LANs? We can roughly define a virtual local area network (VLAN) as a local area network
configured by software, not by physical wiring.
The whole idea of VLAN technology is to divide a LAN into logical, instead of physical, segments. A
LAN can be divided into several logical LANs, called VLANs. Each VLAN is a work group in the
organization. If a person moves from one group to another, there is no need to change the physical
configuration. Any station can be logically moved to another VLAN. All members belonging to a
VLAN can receive broadcast messages sent to that particular VLAN.

This means that if a station moves from VLAN 1 to VLAN 2, it receives broadcast messages sent to
VLAN 2, but no longer receives broadcast messages sent to VLAN 1.
VLAN technology even allows the grouping of stations connected to different switches in a VLAN.
Stations from switches A and B belong to each VLAN. This is a good configuration for a company with
two separate buildings. Each building can have its own switched LAN connected by a backbone.
People in the first building and people in the second building can be in the same work group even
though they are connected to different physical LANs.

Membership

What characteristic can be used to group stations in a VLAN?

Vendors use different characteristics such as interface numbers, port numbers, MAC addresses, IP
addresses, IP multicast addresses, or a combination of two or more of these.

Interface Numbers

Some VLAN vendors use switch interface numbers as a membership characteristic. For
example, the administrator can define that stations connecting to ports 1, 2, 3, and 7 belongto VLAN
1, stations connecting to ports 4, 10, and 12 belong to VLAN 2, and so on.

MAC Addresses

Some VLAN vendors use the 48-bit MAC address as a membership characteristic. For
example, the administrator can stipulate that stations having MAC addresses E2:13:42:A1:23:34 and
F2:A1:23:BC:D3:41 belong to VLAN 1.

IP Addresses

Some VLAN vendors use the 32-bit IP address as a membership characteristic. For example,
the administrator can stipulate that stations having IP addresses 181.34.23.67, 181.34.23.72,
181.34.23.98, and 181.34.23.112 belong to VLAN 1.
Multicast IP Addresses

Some VLAN vendors use the multicast IP address as a membership characteristic.

Combination

Recently, the software available from some vendors allows all these characteristics to be
combined. The administrator can choose one or more characteristics when installing the software.

Configuration

How are the stations grouped into different VLANs? Stations are configured in one of three ways:

1. Manual Configuration: In a manual configuration, the network administrator uses the VLAN
software to manually assign the stations into different VLANs at setup. Later migration from
one VLAN to another is also done manually. Note that this is not a physical configuration; it
is a logical configuration. The term manually here means that the administrator types the
port numbers, the IP addresses, or other characteristics, using the VLAN software.
2. Automatic Configuration: In an automatic configuration, the stations are automatically
connected or disconnected from a VLAN using criteria defined by the administrator.
For example, the administrator can define the project number as the criterion for being a
member of a group.
When a user changes projects, he or she automatically migrates to a new VLAN.
3. Semiautomatic Configuration: A semiautomatic configuration is somewhere between a
manual configuration and an automatic configuration. Usually, the initializing is done
manually, with migrations done automatically.

Communication between Switches

In a multi-switched backbone, each switch must know not only which station belongs to which VLAN,
but also the membership status of stations connected to other switches.

For example, in Figure 17.12, switch A must know the membership status of stations connected to
switch B, and switch B must know the same about switch A.

Three methods have been devised for this purpose: they are

1. Table Maintenance

In this method, when a station sends a broadcast frame to its group members, the switch
creates an a table and records station membership. The switches send their tables to one
another periodically for updating.

2. Frame Tagging

In this method, when a frame is traveling between switches, an extra header is added to the
MAC frame to define the destination VLAN. The frame tag is used by the receiving switches
to determine the VLANs to be receiving the broadcast message.
IEEE Standard

In 1996, the IEEE 802.1 subcommittee passed a standard called 802.1Q that defines the
format for frame tagging. The standard also defines the format to be used in multiswitched
backbones and enables the use of multivendor equipment in VLANs

3. Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM)

In this method, the connection (trunk) between switches is divided into time-shared
channels. For example, if the total number of VLANs in a backbone is five, each trunk is
divided into five channels. The traffic destined for VLAN 1 travels in channel 1, the traffic
destined for VLAN 2 travels in channel 2, and so on. The receiving switch determines the
destination VLAN by checking the channel from which the frame arrived.

Advantages

1. Cost and Time Reduction

VLANs can reduce the migration cost of stations going from one group to another. Physical
reconfiguration takes time and is costly. Instead of physically moving one station to another
segment or even to another switch, it is much easier and quicker to move it by using
software.

2. Creating Virtual Work Groups

VLANs can be used to create virtual work groups. For example, in a campus environment,
professors working on the same project can send broadcast messages to one another
without the necessity of belonging to the same department. This can reduce traffic if the
multicasting capability of IP was previously used.

3. Security

VLANs provide an extra measure of security. People belonging to the same group can send
broadcast messages with the guaranteed assurance that users in other groups will not
receive these messages.