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COMPUTER NETWORKS

Unit I - Introduction: Uses of Computer Networks - Network Hardware - Network Software -

Reference Models - Example Networks.
1. Computer Network
 A computer network is a set of computers connected together for the purpose of sharing resources.
 The most common resource shared today is connection to the internet.
2. Goals of networking:
 Resource sharing
 High reliability
 Save money
 Scalability
 Powerful communication medium

3. Uses of computer Networks

3.1Business Applications
 The aim of networking is to make all programs, equipment’s, and data available to anyone on
the network without regard to the physical location of the resource and the user.
 A company has separate computers to monitor production, keep track of inventories, and do the
payroll.
 Each computer has worked in isolation from the others, but at some point.
 They are connected to extract and correlate information about the entire company.
 Client server
 Email
 Desktop Sharing
Home Applications
The main usage of networks in home is internet. Some popular uses of the Internet for home users are:
• Access to remote information by surfing the World Wide Web for information or just for fun.
• Person-to-person communication sharing the audio, video, text and pictures among groups of
people.
• Interactive entertainment where any movie or television program made in any country can be
displayed on the screen instantly.
• Electronic commerce where people do home shopping, pay their bills, manage their bank
accounts, and handle their investments electronically.
• Instant Message Ex: Twitter
• Social Networking Ex: Face Book, Watsup
• Wiki
• Ecommerce
• IPTV

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Mobile Users
 Mobile computers, such as notebook computers and personal digital assistants (PDAs) are connected
to the office or home even when away from home.
 People on the road use their portable electronic equipment to send and receive telephone calls, faxes,
and electronic mail, surf the Web, access remote files, and log on to remote machines.
 People do this from anywhere on land, sea, or air.
 SMS
 M-Commerce
 GPS

Social Issuses
 Cookies
 Gmail

4. Network hardware
 It depends on transmission technology and scale.
Transmission Technology
There are two types of transmission technology:
1. Broadcast links.
2. Point-to-point links.
Broadcast link
 Broadcast networks have a single communication channel that is shared by all the machines on the
network.
 Short messages, called packets sent by any machine are received by all the others.
 An address field within the packet specifies the intended recipient.
 On receiving a packet, a machine checks the address field.
 If the packet is intended for the receiving machine, that machine processes the packet; if the packet is
intended for some other machine, it is just ignored.
 A broadcast system also allows the possibility of addressing a packet to all destinations by using a
special code in the address field.
 Some broadcast systems support transmission to a subset of the machines, called as multicasting.
Point-to-point link
 Point-to-point networks consist of many connections between individual pairs of machines.
 Point-to-point transmission with one sender and one receiver is sometimes called unicasting.
Scale
 An alternative criterion for classifying networks is their scale.
 The table classifies networks according to their scale.

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Personal Area Networks

 It communicate over the range of person.
 Its coverage area of the network is within a meter.
 Ex.Bluetooth

Local Area Networks

 Local area networks, called LANs, are privately-owned networks within a single building or campus
of up to a few kilometres in size.
 They are widely used to connect personal computers and workstations in company offices and
factories to share resources (e.g., printers) and exchange information.
 LANs are distinguished by three characteristics: (1) size, (2) transmission technology (3) topology.
 LANs are restricted in size. LANs use a transmission technology consisting of a cable to which all the
machines are attached.
 Various topologies are used for broadcast LANs.

 In a bus network, at any instant at most one machine is the master and is allowed to transmit. All
other machines are required to refrain from sending. Eg: IEEE 802.3(Ethernet).
 In the ring system each bit propagates around on its own, not waiting for the rest of the packet to
which it belongs. Eg: IEEE 802.5 (the IBM token ring).
Metropolitan Area Networks
 A metropolitan area network, or MAN, covers a city like cable television network available in many
cities.

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Wide Area Networks

 A wide area network, or WAN,covers large geographical area, often a country or continent.
 It contains a collection of machines intended for running user programs.
 The hosts are connected by a communication subnet.
 The hosts are owned by the customers, whereas the communication subnet is owned and operated by
a telephone company or Internet service provider.
 The job of the subnet is to carry messages from host to host.
 In most wide area networks, the subnet consists of two distinct components: transmission lines and
switching elements.
 Transmission lines move bits between machines. They can be made of copper wire, optical fiber, or
even radio links.
 Switching elements are specialized computers that connect three or more transmission lines.
 When data arrive on an incoming line, the switching element must choose an outgoing line on which
to forward them. These switching computers are called router.

 The collection of communication lines and routers that move packets from the source host to the
destination host form the subnet.
 When a packet is sent from one router to another via one or more intermediate routers, the packet is
received at each intermediate router in its entirety, stored there until the required output line is free,
and then forwarded.
 This is called store-and-forward or packet-switched subnet.
 If the packets are small and all the same size, they are called cells.
 A process on some host has a message to be sent to a process on some other host, the sending host
first cuts the message into packets, each one bearing its number in the sequence.
 These packets are then injected into the network one at a time in quick succession.
 The packets are transported individually over the network and deposited at the receiving host, where
they are reassembled into the original message and delivered to the receiving process.

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Internetworks
 The world collection of computer is called internetworks or internet.
 Gateway: it is used to connection between two or more networks

5. Wireless Networks
Wireless networks can be divided into three main categories:
 System interconnection- It is interconnecting the components of a computer using short-range
radio.
 Some short-range wireless networks called Bluetooth are used to connect these components
without wires.
 Wireless LANs are systems in which every computer has a radio modem and antenna with which it
can communicate with other systems.
 Wireless WANs.
6. Home Networks
Every device in the home is capable of communicating with every other device, and all of them will
be accessible over the Internet. Some categories are :
 Computers (desktop PC).
 Entertainment (TV, DVD).
 Telecommunications (telephone, mobile telephone).
 Appliances (microwave, refrigerator).
 Telemetry (utility meter, smoke/burglar alarm).
Home networking has different properties than other network types. These are:
o The network and devices have to be easy to install.
o The network and devices have to be fool proof in operation.
o Low price is essential for success.
o Security and reliability is very important.
7. Network software
7.1Protocol Hierarchies
 Networks are organized as a stack of layers or levels, each one built upon the other.
 The number of layers, the name of each layer, the contents of each layer, and the function of each
layer differ from network to network.
 The purpose of each layer is to offer certain services to the higher

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layers. A five-layer network is:

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 The entities comprising the corresponding layers on different machines are called peers. The peers
may be processes, hardware devices, or even human beings.
 No data are directly transferred from layer n on one machine to layer n on another machine. Each
layer passes data and control information to the layer immediately below it, until the lowest layer is
reached.
 Below layer 1 is the physical medium through which actual communication occurs.
 A set of layers and protocols is called a network architecture. A list of protocols used by a certain
system, one protocol per layer, is called a protocol stack.

Connection-Oriented and Connectionless Services

 Layers offer two different types of service to the layers above them: connection-oriented and
connectionless.
 Connection-oriented service first establishes a connection, uses the connection, and then releases the
connection. eg. Telephone system.
 Connectionless service is modelled after the postal system. Each message carries the full destination
address, and each one is routed through the system independent of all the others.
 Unreliable connectionless service is called datagram service, which does not return an
acknowledgement to the sender.
 In this service the sender transmits a single datagram containing a request; the reply contains the
answer.

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Service Primitives
A service is specified by a set of primitives available to a user process to access the service. The
primitives are normally system calls of an OS.
Some of the essential primitives:

 The server executes LISTEN to indicate that it is prepared to accept incoming connections. After
executing the primitive, the server process is blocked until a request for connection appears.
 The client process executes CONNECT to establish a connection with the server. The CONNECT
call needs to specify who to connect to. The operating system sends a packet to the peer asking it
to connect.
 When the system sees that the packet is requesting a connection, it checks to see if there is a
listener. If so, it does two things: unblocks the listener and sends back an acknowledgement. The
arrival of this acknowledgement then releases the client.
 The server executes RECEIVE to prepare to accept the first request. Then the client executes
SEND to transmit its request followed by the execution of RECEIVE to get the reply.
 The client use DISCONNECT to terminate the connection. When the server gets the packet, it also
issues a DISCONNECT of its own, acknowledging the client and releasing the connection.
Relationship of Services and Protocols
 A service is a set of primitives that a layer provides to the layer above it.
 The service defines what operations the layer is prepared to perform on behalf of its users, but it
says nothing at all about how these operations are implemented.
 A service relates as an interface between two layers, with the lower layer being the service
provider and the upper layer being the service user.
 A protocol is a set of rules governing the format and meaning of the packets, or messages that are
exchanged by the peer entities within a layer.
 Services relate to the interfaces between layers whereas protocols relate to the packets sent
between peer entities on different machines.

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8. Reference Models
The OSI Reference Model
 This model is based on a proposal developed by the International Standards Organization (ISO).
 It is called the ISO OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) Reference Model because it deals with
connecting open systems that is, systems that are open for communication with other systems.

The Physical Layer

The physical layer is concerned with transmitting raw bits over a communication channel.
The components of the physical layer are:
• Cabling system components
• Adapters that connect media to physical interfaces
• Hub, repeater, and patch panel specifications
• Network Interface Card (NIC)
The Data Link Layer
 The main task of the data link layer is to transform a raw transmission facility into a line that
appears free of undetected transmission errors to the network layer.
 It performs this task by the sender breaking up the input data into data frames and transmit the
frames sequentially.
 If the service is reliable, the receiver confirms correct receipt of each frame by sending back an
acknowledgement frame.
This layer provides the following functions:
• Allows a device to access the network to send and receive messages
• Offers a physical address so a device’s data can be sent on the network

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• Works with a device’s networking software when sending and receiving messages

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• Provides error-detection capability

The common networking components are
:
• Network interface cards
• Ethernet and Token Ring switches
• Bridges
The Network Layer
 The network layer controls the operation of the subnet.
 A key design issue is determining how packets are routed from source to destination. The quality
of service provided is also a network layer issue.
 When a packet has to travel from one network to another to get to its destination, many problems
can arise.
 Network layer overcomes all these problems to allow heterogeneous networks to be
interconnected.
The Transport Layer
 The basic function is to accept data from above, split it up into smaller units , pass these to
the network layer, and ensure that the pieces all arrive correctly at the other end.
 The transport layer also determines what type of service to provide to the session layer, and, to the
users of the network.
Functions:
• Segmentation of data for network transport
• Control of data flow to prevent memory overruns
• Transmission-error detection
The most common transport layer protocols are the connection-oriented TCP Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP) and the connectionless UDP User Datagram Protocol (UDP).
The Session Layer
 The session layer allows users on different machines to establish sessions between them.
 Sessions offer various services like dialog control, token management, and synchronization.

The Presentation Layer

 It is concerned with the syntax and semantics of the information transmitted.
 The presentation layer manages abstract data structures and allows higher-level data structures (e.g.,
banking records), to be defined and exchanged.
The Application Layer
 The application layer contains a variety of protocols that are commonly needed by users.eg: HTTP
(HyperText Transfer Protocol), which is the basis for the World Wide Web.
 When a browser wants a Web page, it sends the name of the page it wants to the server using
HTTP. The server then sends the page back.
 Other application protocols are used for file transfer, electronic mail, and network news.
The TCP/IP Reference Model

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 The ARPANET was a research network sponsored by U.S. Department of Defense with a major
goal to connect multiple networks.

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 This architecture was later known as the TCP/IP Reference Model, after its two primary protocols.
The relation between OSI and TCP/IP model is:

The Network Interface Layer

 This is also called as Network Access Layer. This is the first layer of the four layer TCP/IP model.
 Network Access layer defines details of how data is physically sent through the network, including
how bits are electrically or optically signaled by hardware devices .
 The layer is responsible for placing TCP/IP packets on the network medium and receiving TCP/IP
packets off the network medium.
 It is used to connect different network types like LAN technologies such as Ethernet and Token
Ring.
 The protocols included are Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, X.25, Frame Relay etc.
The Internet Layer
 This layer permits hosts to inject packets into any network and have them travel independently to
the destination.
 They may even arrive in a different order than they were sent, in which higher layers rearrange
them.
 It defines an official packet format and protocol called IP (Internet Protocol).
 The job of the internet layer is to deliver IP packets where they are supposed to go. Packet routing
is clearly the major issue.
 The Internet layer is responsible for addressing, packaging, and routing functions. The core
protocols of the Internet layer are IP, ARP, ICMP, and IGMP.
 The Internet Protocol (IP) is a routable protocol responsible for IP addressing, routing, and the
fragmentation and reassembly of packets.
 The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is responsible for the resolution of the Internet layer
address to the Network Interface layer address such as a hardware address.
 The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is responsible for providing diagnostic functions
and reporting errors due to the unsuccessful delivery of IP packets.
 The Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is responsible for the management of IP
multicast groups.
The Transport Layer

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 The layer above the internet layer is called the transport layer. It is designed to allow peer entities
on the source and destination hosts to carry on a conversation.

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 TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), is a reliable connection-oriented protocol that allows a byte
stream originating on one machine to be delivered without error on any other machine in the
internet.
 It fragments the incoming byte stream into discrete messages and passes each one on to the
internet layer.
 At the destination, the receiving TCP process reassembles the received messages into the output
stream.
 UDP (User Datagram Protocol), is an unreliable, connectionless protocol for applications that do
not want TCP's sequencing or flow control and wish to provide their own. The relation of IP,
TCP, and UDP is:

The Application Layer

 The Application layer provides applications the ability to access the services of the other layers
and defines the protocols that applications use to exchange data.
 The most widely-known Application layer protocols are those used for the exchange of user
information:
• The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is used to transfer files that make up the Web pages
of the World Wide Web.
• The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is used for interactive file transfer.
• The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is used for the transfer of mail messages and
attachments.
• Telnet, a terminal emulation protocol, is used for logging on remotely to network hosts.
Additionally, the following Application layer protocols help facilitate the use and management of TCP/IP
networks:
• The Domain Name System (DNS) is used to resolve a host name to an IP address.
• The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is a routing protocol that routers use to exchange
routing information on an IP internetwork.
• The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is used between a network management
console and network devices (routers, bridges, intelligent hubs) to collect and exchange
network management information.

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