WACHEMO UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATICS
DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

DATA COMMUNICATION AND COMPUTER NETWORKS

COURSE MODULE
(ITec2102)

Organized By:
1. Engdaw Ayalew (MSc in Information Technology)
2. Fikadu Weyesa (MSc in Information Technology)
3. Kidist Ergetie (MSc in Information Technology)

Reviewed By:
1. Menbere Hailu (Msc in Information System)
2. Eleni Shiferaw (Bsc in Information Technology)

December, 2021
Hossaena

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Module Preface
This Data communication and computer networks module prepared for concerned students to
enhance education delivery using hard copy and softcopy options.
Dear students, this module divided into seven chapters with very deep data communication and
computer networks contents as briefly highlighted below.

In Chapter one, there are around three main topics these are Introduction to computer network,
Data communication and History of computer networks. These three chapters will cover in detail
in chapter one as described above.

In Chapter Two, you will study about Data Communications, Transmission Mediums, Guided
and Unguided transmissions, Transmission modes and transmission impairments. In addition to
this you will learn more about satellite transmission too.

In chapter Three, students will study about Network architecture which covers network devices,
network line configuration, network topologies, connection oriented and connectionless services.

In Chapter Four, you will learn about Network protocols, TCP/IP protocol suites, OSI references
model and network standardizations bodies.

In Chapter Five, you will know about local area networks and wide area networks, and also
students will learn about LAN technologies and WAN technologies.

In Chapter Six, Students will know more about client server communications, socket
programming, Server side programming, server socket and multithreading concepts.

In Chapter Seven, dear students in this chapter you will learn more about network security issues
and integrity, cryptography concepts, symmetric and asymmetric key encryption concepts, public
key and private key concepts and also you will more about digital signature and some other
techniques.

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Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE ........................................................................................................................... 1
HISTORY AND OVERVIEW ..................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Introduction to Computer Networks ................................................................................... 1
1.1.1 Computer network types ......................................................................................... 2
1.1.2 Network Basic Understanding ................................................................................ 4
1.1.3 Applications of Communication & Computer Network ......................................... 5
1.1.4 Characteristics of a Computer Network ................................................................. 5
1.2 Data Communications ......................................................................................................... 14
1.3 History of Computer network .............................................................................................. 16
Review Questions for chapter one ......................................................................................... 17
CHAPTER TWO ........................................................................................................................ 18
DATA COMMUNICATIONS ................................................................................................... 18
2.1 Data Communications ................................................................................................... 18
2.2 Data Transmission ......................................................................................................... 19
2.2.1 Analog and Digital Transmission ............................................................................. 19
2.2.3 Analog Transmission ............................................................................................. 20
2.2.4 Digital Transmission................................................................................................ 22
2.3 Transmission Impairments ............................................................................................ 23
2.4 Data Transmission Mode .............................................................................................. 24
2.5 Transmission Media ...................................................................................................... 31
2.6 Types of Transmission Media ....................................................................................... 31
Review Questions for chapter 2 ............................................................................................. 38
CHAPTER THREE .................................................................................................................... 39
COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK ARCHITECTURE ....................................................... 39
3.1 .Network line Configuration ......................................................................................... 39
3.2 Network Devices ........................................................................................................... 41
3.3 Network Topologies ...................................................................................................... 46
3.4 Connection-oriented and connectionless services ......................................................... 53
3.4.1 Connection-Oriented Services ............................................................................. 53
3.4.2 Connectionless-Service ....................................................................................... 54
Review Questions for chapter 3 ............................................................................................. 55

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CHAPTER FOUR....................................................................................................................... 56
COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK PROTOCOLS ............................................................... 56
4.1 Network protocol........................................................................................................... 56
4.2 TCP/IP Protocol Suite ................................................................................................... 57
4.3 Four Layers of TCP/IP model ....................................................................................... 59
4.3.1 Most Common TCP/IP Protocols ............................................................................... 62
4. 4 Open System Interconnection (OSI) reference Model? ............................................... 64
4.5 Layers of the OSI Model ............................................................................................... 65
4.6 Network Standards and standardization bodies ............................................................ 71
Review Questions for chapter 4 ............................................................................................. 71
CHAPTER FIVE ........................................................................................................................ 72
LOCAL AND WIDE AREA NETWORKS.............................................................................. 72
5.1 LAN topologies (bus, ring, star).................................................................................... 72
5.2 LAN technologies ......................................................................................................... 75
5.3 Large networks and Wide areas Networks .................................................................... 77
5.4 Types of WAN technologies ........................................................................................ 79
Review Questions for chapter 5 ............................................................................................. 80
CHAPTER SEX .......................................................................................................................... 81
CLIENT SERVER COMPUTING ............................................................................................ 81
6.1 Web Technologies ......................................................................................................... 81
6.2 Server-side programs..................................................................................................... 82
6.3 Socket Programming ..................................................................................................... 83
6.4 Server sockets ................................................................................................................ 86
Review Questions for chapter 6 ............................................................................................. 90
CHAPTER SEVEN..................................................................................................................... 91
DATA SECURITY AND INTEGRITY .................................................................................... 91
7.1 Fundamentals of network Security ................................................................................ 91
7.2 Goals of Network Security ............................................................................................ 91
7.2.1 Achieving Network Security ............................................................................... 92
7.2.2 Security Mechanisms at Networking Layers ....................................................... 93
7.3 Cryptography ................................................................................................................. 94
7.3.1 History of Cryptography ...................................................................................... 94

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 7.3.2 Security Services of Cryptography ...................................................................... 96

7.3.3 Components of a Cryptosystem ........................................................................... 98

7.4 Types of Cryptosystems ................................................................................................ 99
7.4.1 Symmetric Key Encryption ................................................................................. 99
7.4.2 Asymmetric Key Encryption ............................................................................. 101
7.5 Firewalls ...................................................................................................................... 104
7.6 Virtual Private Network .............................................................................................. 105
Review Questions for chapter 7 ........................................................................................... 106
References ................................................................................................................................... 107

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List of Tables Pages
Table 4.1: Difference between OSI reference model and TCP/IP Conceptual layers ……. 70
Table 7.1: Security services of cryptography ……………………………………….. 97
Table 7.2: Summary of basic key cryptosystems ..................................................................... 103
Table 7.3: difference between public key and private key ...................................................... 104

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List of Figures Pages
Figure 1. 1 category 5 network cable .............................................................................................. 6
Figure 1. 2 Central distributor ......................................................................................................... 6
Figure 1. 3 wifi router ..................................................................................................................... 7
Figure 1. 4 : Network interface card ............................................................................................... 7
Figure 1. 5 External Network card .................................................................................................. 8
Figure 1. 6 Universal serial Bus ...................................................................................................... 8
Figure 1. 7 Personal Area Network................................................................................................. 9
Figure 1. 8 Local Area Network ................................................................................................... 10
Figure 1. 9 Metropolitan Area Network ....................................................................................... 11
Figure 1. 10 Wide Area network................................................................................................... 11
Figure 2. 1 Data communication model ........................................................................................ 18
Figure 2. 2 Analog wave form ...................................................................................................... 21

Figure 2. 3 Digital transmission .................................................................................................... 22

Figure 2. 4 Simplex transmission mode ........................................................................................ 25
Figure 2. 5 half duplex transmission mode ................................................................................... 26
Figure 2. 6 Full duplex transmission mode ................................................................................... 27
Figure 2. 7 Synchronous mode ..................................................................................................... 28
Figure 2. 8 Asynchronous mode ................................................................................................... 29
Figure 2. 9 Serial transmission mode ............................................................................................ 29
Figure 2. 10 Parallel transmission mode ....................................................................................... 30
Figure 2. 11 Transmission media types ........................................................................................ 32
Figure 2. 13 Unshielded Twisted pair cable ................................................................................ 33
Figure 2. 12 Twisted pair cable..................................................................................................... 33
Figure 2. 14 Shielded Twisted pair cable ...................................................................................... 34
Figure 2. 15 Coaxial cable ............................................................................................................ 34
Figure 2. 16 : Optical fiber cable .................................................................................................. 35
Figure 2. 17 Multimode fiber optic cable ..................................................................................... 36
Figure 2. 18 Single mode fiber optic cable ................................................................................... 36
Figure 2. 19 Terrestrial microwave ............................................................................................... 37

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Figure 2. 20 Satellite microwave .................................................................................................. 38
Figure 3. 1 Point to point network line Configuration .................................................................. 39
Figure 3. 2 Multiple point network line configuration ................................................................. 40

Figure 3. 3 Router network device ................................................................................................ 44

Figure 3. 4 Star network topology ................................................................................................ 48
Figure 3. 5 Bus Network topology ................................................................................................ 49
Figure 3. 6 Ring network Topology .............................................................................................. 50
Figure 3. 7 Tree network topology ............................................................................................... 51
Figure 3. 8 Mesh network topology .............................................................................................. 52
Figure 3. 9 Hybrid network topology ........................................................................................... 53
Figure 4. 1 TCP/UDP protocols .................................................................................................... 59
Figure 4. 2 Four Layers of TCP/IP model .................................................................................... 60

Figure 4. 3 OSI layers ................................................................................................................... 66

Figure 4. 4 Difference between model and TCP/IP layers ........................................................... 69
Figure 5. 1 Bus topology network................................................................................................. 73
Figure 5. 2 Ring topology network ............................................................................................... 74

Figure 5. 3 Star topology network ................................................................................................ 75

Figure 6. 1 Client server communication ...................................................................................... 87
Figure 7. 1 Cryptology branches ................................................................................................... 95
Figure 7. 2 Simple model of cryptography ................................................................................... 98
Figure 7. 3 Symmetric key encryption ........................................................................................ 100
Figure 7. 4 Asymmetric key encryption ..................................................................................... 101

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 CHAPTER ONE
HISTORY AND OVERVIEW

Activity 1
Explain the computer networks?
Is there any difference between computer network and internet access?
Discuss on history of computer network? How it starts when and where?
What is the application area of computer networks?

Introduction to Computer Networks

Computer networks are the basis of communication in IT. They are used in a huge variety of
ways and can include many different types of network. A computer network is a set of
computers that are connected together so that they can share information. The earliest examples
of computer networks are from the 1960s, but they have come a long way in the half-century
since then.

A computer network comprises two or more computers that are connected either by cables
(wired) or WiFi (wireless) with the purpose of transmitting, exchanging, or sharing data and
resources. You build a computer network using hardware (e.g., routers, switches, access points,
and cables) and software (e.g., operating systems or business applications).

Geographic location often defines a computer network. For example, a LAN (local area network)
connects computers in a defined physical space, like an office building, whereas a WAN (wide
area network) can connect computers across continents. The internet is the largest example of
WAN, connecting billions of computers worldwide.

You can further define a computer network by the protocols it uses to communicate, the physical
arrangement of its components, how it controls traffic, and its purpose.
Computer networks enable communication for every business, entertainment, and research
purpose. The internet, online search, email, audio and video sharing, online commerce, live-
streaming, and social networks all exist because of computer networks.

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Computer network types

As networking needs evolved, so did the computer network types that serve those needs. Here
are the most common and widely used computer network types:

• LAN (local area network): A LAN connects computers over a relatively short
distance, allowing them to share data, files, and resources. For example, a LAN may
connect all the computers in an office building, school, or hospital. Typically, LANs are
privately owned and managed.
• WLAN (wireless local area network): A WLAN is just like a LAN but connections
between devices on the network are made wirelessly.
• WAN (wide area network): As the name implies, a WAN connects computers over a
wide area, such as from region to region or even continent to continent. The internet is
the largest WAN, connecting billions of computers worldwide. You will typically see
collective or distributed ownership models for WAN management.
• MAN (metropolitan area network): MANs are typically larger than LANs but smaller
than WANs. Cities and government entities typically own and manage MANs.
• PAN (personal area network): A PAN serves one person. For example, if you have an
iPhone and a Mac, it’s very likely you’ve set up a PAN that shares and syncs content—
text messages, emails, photos, and more—across both devices.
• SAN (storage area network): A SAN is a specialized network that provides access to
block-level storage shared network or cloud storage that, to the user, looks and works
like a storage drive that’s physically attached to a computer. (For more information on
how a SAN works with block storage, see Block Storage: A Complete Guide.)
• CAN (campus area network): A CAN is also known as a corporate area network. A
CAN is larger than a LAN but smaller than a WAN. CANs serve sites such as colleges,
universities, and business campuses.
• VPN (virtual private network): A VPN is a secure, point-to-point connection between
two network end points (see ‘Nodes’ below). A VPN establishes an encrypted channel
that keeps a user’s identity and access credentials, as well as any data transferred,
inaccessible to hackers.
The following are some common terms to know when discussing computer networking:

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 • IP address: An IP address is a unique number assigned to every device connected to a
network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. Each IP address identifies
the device’s host network and the location of the device on the host network. When one
device sends data to another, the data includes a ‘header’ that includes the IP address of
the sending device and the IP address of the destination device.
• Notes: A node is a connection point inside a network that can receive, send, create, or
store data. Each node requires you to provide some form of identification to receive
access, like an IP address. A few examples of nodes include computers, printers,
modems, bridges, and switches. A node is essentially any network device that can
recognize, process, and transmit information to any other network node.
• Routers: A router is a physical or virtual device that sends information contained in
data packets between networks. Routers analyze data within the packets to determine
the best way for the information to reach its ultimate destination. Routers forward data
packets until they reach their destination node.
• Switches: A switch is a device that connects other devices and manages node-to-node
communication within a network; ensuring data packets reach their ultimate
destination. While a router sends information between networks, a switch sends
information between nodes in a single network. When discussing computer networks,
‘switching’ refers to how data is transferred between devices in a network. The three
main types of switching are as follows:
o Circuit switching, which establishes a dedicated communication path between
nodes in a network. This dedicated path assures the full bandwidth is available
during the transmission, meaning no other traffic can travel along that path.
o Packet switching involves breaking down data into independent components
called packets which, because of their small size, make fewer demands on the
network. The packets travel through the network to their end destination.
o Message switching sends a message in its entirety from the source node,
traveling from switch to switch until it reaches its destination node.
• Ports: A port identifies a specific connection between network devices. Each port is
identified by a number. If you think of an IP address as comparable to the address of a
hotel, then ports are the suites or room numbers within that hotel. Computers use port

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 numbers to determine which application, service, or process should receive specific
messages.
• Network cable types: The most common network cable types are Ethernet twisted pair,
coaxial, and fiber optic. The choice of cable type depends on the size of the network,
the arrangement of network elements, and the physical distance between devices.

Network Basic Understanding

A system of interconnected computers and computerized peripherals such as printers is called

computer network. This interconnection among computers facilitates information sharing
among them. Computers may connect to each other by either wired or wireless media.

a) Network Engineering
Networking engineering is a complicated task, which involves software, firmware, chip level
engineering, hardware, and electric pulses. To ease network engineering, the whole networking
concept is divided into multiple layers. Each layer is involved in some particular task and is
independent of all other layers. But as a whole, almost all networking tasks depend on all of
these layers. Layers share data between them and they depend on each other only to take input
and send output.

b) Internet

A network of networks is called an internetwork, or simply the internet. It is the largest network
in existence on this planet. The internet hugely connects all WANs and it can have connection
to LANs and Home networks. Internet uses TCP/IP protocol suite and uses IP as its addressing
protocol. Present day, Internet is widely implemented using IPv4. Because of shortage of
address spaces, it is gradually migrating from IPv4 to IPv6.

Internet enables its users to share and access enormous amount of information worldwide. It
uses WWW, FTP, email services, audio and video streaming etc. At huge level, internet works
on Client-Server model.

Internet uses very high speed backbone of fiber optics. To inter-connect various continents,
fibers are laid under sea known to us as submarine communication cable.

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Applications of Communication & Computer Network

Computer systems and peripherals are connected to form a network. They provide numerous
advantages:
• Resource sharing such as printers and storage devices
• Exchange of information by means of e-Mails and FTP
• Information sharing by using Web or Internet
• Interaction with other users using dynamic web pages
• IP phones
• Video conferences
• Parallel computing
• Instant messaging

Characteristics of a Computer Network

• Share resources from one computer to another.

• Create files and store them in one computer, access those files from the other
computer(s) connected over the network.

• Connect a printer, scanner, or a fax machine to one computer within the network and let
other computers of the network use the machines available over the network.

Following is the list of hardware's required to set up a computer network.

• Network Cables
• Distributors

• Routers

• Internal Network Cards

• External Network Cards

A. Network Cables

Network cables are used to connect computers. The most commonly used cable is Category 5
cable RJ-45.

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 Figure 1. 1 category 5 network cable

B. Distributors
A computer can be connected to another one via a serial port but if we need to connect many
computers to produce a network, this serial connection will not work.

Figure 1. 2 Central distributor

The solution is to use a central body to which other computers, printers, scanners, etc. can be
connected and then this body will manage or distribute network traffic.

C. Router

A router is a type of device which acts as the central point among computers and other devices
that are a part of the network. It is equipped with holes called ports. Computers and other
devices are connected to a router using network cables. Now-a-days router comes in wireless
modes using which computers can be connected without any physical cable.

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 Figure 1. 3 wifi router

D. Network Card

Network card is a necessary component of a computer without which a computer cannot be

connected over a network. It is also known as the network adapter or Network Interface Card
(NIC). Most branded computers have network card pre-installed. Network cards are of two
types: Internal and External Network Cards.

E. Internal Network Cards

Motherboard has a slot for internal network card where it is to be inserted. Internal network
cards are of two types in which the first type uses Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)
connection, while the second type uses Industry Standard Architecture (ISA). Network cables
are required to provide network access.

Figure 1. 4 : Network interface card

F. External Network Cards

External network cards are of two types: Wireless and USB based. Wireless network card needs
to be inserted into the motherboard; however no network cable is required to connect to the
network.

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 Figure 1. 5 External Network card

G. Universal Serial Bus (USB)

USB card is easy to use and connects via USB port. Computers automatically detect USB card
and can install the drivers required to support the USB network card automatically.

Figure 1. 6 Universal serial Bus

A system of interconnected computers and computerized peripherals such as printers is called
computer network. This interconnection among computers facilitates information sharing
among them. Computers may connect to each other by either wired or wireless media.

Classification of Computer Networks

Computer networks are classified based on various factors. They include:

• Geographical span
• Inter-connectivity

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 • Administration

• Architecture

A. Geographical Span
Geographically a network can be seen in one of the following categories:
• It may be spanned across your table, among Bluetooth enabled devices,. Ranging not
more than few meters.
• It may be spanned across a whole building, including intermediate devices to connect all
floors.
• It may be spanned across a whole city.

• It may be spanned across multiple cities or provinces.

• It may be one network covering whole world.

✓ Personal Area Network

A Personal Area Network (PAN) is smallest network which is very personal to a user. This may
include Bluetooth enabled devices or infra-red enabled devices. PAN has connectivity range up
to 10 meters. PAN may include wireless computer keyboard and mouse, Bluetooth enabled
headphones, wireless printers and TV remotes.

Figure 1. 7 Personal Area Network

For example, Piconet is Bluetooth-enabled Personal Area Network which may contain up to 8
devices connected together in a master-slave fashion.

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 ✓ Local Area Network

A computer network spanned inside a building and operated under single administrative system
is generally termed as Local Area Network (LAN). Usually,LAN covers an organization’
offices, schools, colleges or universities. Number of systems connected in LAN may vary from
as least as two to as much as 16 million.

LAN provides a useful way of sharing the resources between end users. The resources such as
printers; file servers, scanners, and internet are easily sharable among computers.

Figure 1. 8 Local Area Network

LANs are composed of inexpensive networking and routing equipment. It may contain local
servers serving file storage and other locally shared applications. It mostly operates on private IP
addresses and does not involve heavy routing. LAN works under its own local domain and
controlled centrally.

LAN uses either Ethernet or Token-ring technology. Ethernet is most widely employed LAN
technology and uses Star topology, while Token-ring is rarely seen.
LAN can be wired, wireless, or in both forms at once.

✓ Metropolitan Area Network

The Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) generally expands throughout a city such as cable TV
network. It can be in the form of Ethernet, Token-ring, ATM, or Fiber Distributed Data
Interface (FDDI).

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Metro Ethernet is a service which is provided by ISPs. This service enables its users to expand
their Local Area Networks. For example, MAN can help an organization to connect all of its
offices in a city.

Figure 1. 9 Metropolitan Area Network

Backbone of MAN is high-capacity and high-speed fiber optics. MAN works in between Local
Area Network and Wide Area Network. MAN provides uplink for LANs to WANs or internet.

✓ Wide Area Network

As the name suggests, the Wide Area Network (WAN) covers a wide area which may span
across provinces and even a whole country. Generally, telecommunication networks are Wide
Area Network. These networks provide connectivity to MANs and LANs. Since they are
equipped with very high speed backbone, WANs use very expensive network equipment.

Figure 1. 10 Wide Area network

WAN may use advanced technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Frame
Relay, and Synchronous Optical Network (SONET). WAN may be managed by multiple
administrations.

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 ✓ Internetwork

A network of networks is called an internetwork, or simply the internet. It is the largest network
in existence on this planet. The internet hugely connects all WANs and it can have connection
to LANs and Home networks. Internet uses TCP/IP protocol suite and uses IP as its addressing
protocol. Present day, Internet is widely implemented using IPv4. Because of shortage of
address spaces, it is gradually migrating from IPv4 to IPv6.

Internet enables its users to share and access enormous amount of information worldwide. It
uses WWW, FTP, email services, audio and video streaming etc. At huge level, internet works
on Client-Server model.

Internet uses very high speed backbone of fiber optics. To inter-connect various continents,
fibers are laid under sea known to us as submarine communication cable.

Internet is widely deployed on World Wide Web services using HTML linked pages and is
accessible by client software known as Web Browsers. When a user requests a page using some
web browser located on some Web Server anywhere in the world, the Web Server responds
with the proper HTML page. The communication delay is very low.

Internet is serving many proposes and is involved in many aspects of life. Some of them are:
• Web sites
• E-mail

• Instant Messaging

• Blogging

• Social Media

• Marketing

• Networking

• Resource Sharing

• Audio and Video Streaming

A. Inter-Connectivity
Components of a network can be connected to each other differently in some fashion. By
connectedness we mean either logically, physically, or both ways.

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 • Every single device can be connected to every other device on network, making the
network mesh.
• All devices can be connected to a single medium but geographically disconnected,
created bus like structure.
• Each device is connected to its left and right peers only, creating linear structure.

• All devices connected together with a single device, creating star like structure.

• All devices connected arbitrarily using all previous ways to connect each other, resulting
in a hybrid structure.

B. Administration

From an administrator’s point of view, a network can be private network which belongs a single
autonomous system and cannot be accessed outside its physical or logical domain. A network
can be public which is accessed by all.

C. Network Architecture

Computer networks can be discriminated into various types such as Client-Server, peer-to-peer
or hybrid, depending upon its architecture.
• There can be one or more systems acting as Server. Other being Client, requests the
Server to serve requests. Server takes and processes request on behalf of Clients.
• Two systems can be connected Point-to-Point, or in back-to-back fashion. They both
reside at the same level and called peers.
• There can be hybrid network which involves network architecture of both the above
types.
D. Network Applications
Computer systems and peripherals are connected to form a network. They provide numerous
advantages:
• Resource sharing such as printers and storage devices

• Exchange of information by means of e-Mails and FTP

• Information sharing by using Web or Internet

• Interaction with other users using dynamic web pages

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 • IP phones

• Video conferences

• Parallel computing

• Instant messaging

Generally, networks are distinguished based on their geographical span. A network can be as
small as distance between your mobile phone and its Bluetooth headphone and as large as the
internet itself, covering the whole geographical world,

Data Communications

Data communications refers to the transmission of this digital data between two or more
computers and a computer network or data network is a telecommunications network that
allows computers to exchange data. The physical connection between networked computing
devices is established using either cable media or wireless media. The best-known computer
network is the Internet.

Data communications and networking are changing the way we do business and the way we live.
Business decisions have to be made ever more quickly, and the decision makers require
immediate access to accurate information. Why wait a week for that report from Germany to
arrive by mail when it could appear almost instantaneously through computer networks?
Businesses today rely on computer networks and internetworks. But before we ask how quickly
we can get hooked up, we need to know how networks operate, what types of technologies are
available, and which design best fills which set of needs.

The development of the personal computer brought about tremendous changes for Business,
industry, science, and education. A similar revolution is occurring in data Communications and
networking. Technological advances are making it possible for Communications links to carry
more and faster signals. As a result, services are evolving to allow use of this expanded capacity.
For example, established telephone services such as conference calling, call waiting, voice mail,
and caller ID have been extended.
Research in data communications and networking has resulted in new technologies. One goal is
to be able to exchange data such as text, audio, and video from all points in the world. We want

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to access the Internet to download and upload information quickly and accurately and at any
time.
When we communicate, we are sharing information. This sharing can be local or remote.
Between individuals, local communication usually occurs face to face, while remote
communication takes place over distance. The term telecommunication, which includes
telephony, telegraphy, and television, means communication at a distance (tele is Greek for
"far").
The word data refers to information presented in whatever form is agreed upon by the parties
creating and using the data. Data communications are the exchange of data between two devices
via some form of transmission medium such as a wire cable. For data communications to occur,
the communicating devices must be part of a communication system made up of a combination
of hardware (physical equipment) and software (programs). The effectiveness of a data
communications system depends on four fundamental characteristics: delivery, accuracy,
timeliness, and jitter.
1. Delivery: The system must deliver data to the correct destination. Data must be received by
the intended device or user and only by that device or user.
2. Accuracy: The system must deliver the data accurately. Data that have been altered in
transmission and left uncorrected are unusable.
3. Timeliness: The system must deliver data in a timely manner. Data delivered late are useless.
In the case of video and audio, timely delivery means delivering data as they are produced, in the
same order that they are produced, and without significant delay. This kind of delivery is called
real-time transmission.
4. Jitter: Jitter refers to the variation in the packet arrival time. It is the uneven delay in the
delivery of audio or video packets. For example, let us assume that video packets are sent every
3D ms. If some of the packets arrive with 3D-ms delay and others with
4D-ms delay, an uneven quality in the video is the result.

Data communications refers to the transmission of this digital data between two or more
computers and a computer network or data network is a telecommunications network that
allows computers to exchange data. The physical connection between networked computing
devices is established using either cable media or wireless media. The best-known computer
network is the Internet.

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This tutorial should teach you basics of Data Communication and Computer Network (DCN)
and will also take you through various advance concepts related to Data Communication and
Computer Network.

History of Computer network

Computer networking as we know it today may be said to have gotten its start with the
ARPANET development in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Prior to that time there were
computer vendor" networks" designed primarily to connect terminals and remote job entry
stations to a mainframe. But the notion of networking between computers viewing each other as
equal peers to achieve "resource sharing" was fundamental to the ARPANET design [1]. The
other strong emphasis of the ARPANET work was its reliance on the then novel technique of
packet switching to efficiently share communication resources among" bursty" users, instead of
the more traditional message or circuit switching. Although the term "network architecture" was
not yet widely used, the initial ARPANET design did have a definite structure and introduced
another key concept: protocol layering, or the idea that the total communications functions could
be divided into several layers, each building upon the services of the one below. The original
design had three major layers, a network layer, which included the network access and switch-to-
switch (IMP-to-IMP) protocols, a host-to-host layer (the Network Control Protocolor NCP), and
a "function-oriented protocol" layer, where specific applications such as file transfer, mail,
speech, and remote terminal support were provided [2]. Similar ideas were being pursued in
several other research projects around the world, including the Cyclades network in France [3],
the National Physical Laboratory Network in England [4], and the Ethernet system [5] at Xerox
PARC in the USA. Some of these projects focused more heavily on the potential for high-speed
local networks such as the early 3-Mbps Ethernet. Satellite and radio channels for mobile users
were also a topic of growing interest.

By 1973 it was clear to the networking vanguard that another protocol layer needed to be
inserted into the protocol hierarchy to accommodate the interconnection of diverse types of
individual networks.

The basis for the network interconnection approach developing in this community was to make
use of a variety of individual networks each providing only a simple "best effort" or "datagram"

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transmission service. Reliable virtual circuit services would then be provided on an end-to-end
basis with the TCP (or similar protocol) in the hosts. During the same time period, public data
networks (PDNs) were emerging under the auspices of CCITT, aimed at providing more
traditional virtual circuit types of network service via the newly defined X.25 protocol. The
middle and late 1970s saw networking conferences dominated by heated debates over the
relative merits of circuit versus packet switching and datagrams versus X.25 virtual circuits [8].
The computer vendors continued to offer their proprietary networks, gradually supporting the
new X.25 service as links under their own protocols. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was
the notable exception, adopting the research community approach of peer-to-peer networking at
an early date, and coming out with its own new suite of protocols (DECNET) [9]. By the late
1970s, a new major influence was emerging in the computer network community. The computer
manufacturers realized that multivendor systems could no longer be avoided, and began to take
action to satisfy the growing user demand for interoperability. Working through their traditional
international body, the ISO, a new group (SC16) was created to develop standards in the
networking area.

A computer network is a group of computers that has the potential to transmit, receive and
exchange voice, data, and video traffic. A network connection can be set up with the help of
either cable or wireless media. In modern times, computer networks are very important as
information technology is increasing rapidly all over the world. The network and data
communication are the essential factors to rise information technology in the world as
technology's advancement is on the system, including the gadgets. ARPANET began the
networking long ago.

Review Questions for chapter one

What is computer network?

What is Data communication means?
Discus on History of Computer network?
What is the Purpose of Computer network?

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 CHAPTER TWO
DATA COMMUNICATIONS

Data Communications

Data Communications is the transfer of data or information between a source and a receiver.
The source transmits the data and the receiver receives it.
The actual generation of the information is not part of Data Communications nor is the resulting
action of the information at the receiver.
Data Communication is interested in the transfer of data, the method of transfer and the
preservation of the data during the transfer process.

The general Communication Model

Figure 2. 1 Data communication model

1. An information source, which produces a message.

2. A transmitter, which encodes the message into signals
3. A channel, to which signals are adapted for transmission
4. A receiver, which 'decodes' (reconstructs) the message from the signal.
5. A destination, where the message arrives.

Activity 2.1
What is data transmission means and discuss in details
Discuss on analog and digital signals
How transmission impairment happen during data transmission?

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 Data Transmission

Data transmission is the process of sending digital or analog data over a communication medium
to one or more computing, network, communication or electronic devices. It enables the transfer
and communication of devices in a point-to-point, point-to-multipoint and multipoint-to-
multipoint environment.
Data transmission can be analog and digital but is mainly reserved for sending and receiving
digital data. It works when a device or piece of equipment, such as a computer, intends to send a
data object or file to one or multiple recipient devices, like a computer or server. The digital data
originates from the source device in the form of discrete signals or digital bit streams. These data
streams/signals are placed over a communication medium, such as physical copper wires,
wireless carriers and optical fiber, for delivery to the destination/recipient device. Moreover,
each outward signal can be baseband or passband.
In addition to external communication, data transmission also may be internally carried to a
device. For example, the random access memory (RAM) or hard disk that sends data to a
processor is also a form of data transmission.

Analog and Digital Transmission

Analog transmission is a method of conveying voice, data, image, signal, or video information. It
uses a continuous signal varying in amplitude, phase, or another property that is in proportion to
a specific characteristic of a variable. Analog transmission could mean that the transmission is a
transfer of an analog source signal which uses an analog modulation method (or a variance of
one or more properties of high frequency periodic waveform, also known as a carrier signal). FM
and AM are examples of such a modulation. The transmission could also use no modulation at
all. It is most notably an information signal that is constantly varying.

Data transmission (also known as digital transmission or digital communications) is a literal

transfer of data over a point to point (or point to multipoint) transmission medium –such
as copper wires, optical fibers, wireless communications media, or storage media. The data that
is to be transferred is often represented as an electro-magnetic signal (such as a microwave).
Digital transmission transfers messages discretely. These messages are represented by a
sequence of pulses via a line code. However, these messages can also be represented by a limited

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set of wave forms that always vary. Either way, they are represented using a digital modulation
method.
Analog transmission is capable of being conveyed in a no fewer than four ways: through a
twisted pair or coax cable, through a fiber optic cable, through the air, or through water. There
are, however, only two basic types of analog transmission. The first is known as amplitude
modulation (or AM). This is a technique used in electronic communication and works by
alternating the strength of a transmitted signal in relation to the information that is being sent.
The second is known as frequency modulation (or FM). This type of communication conveys
information over a carrier wave, just as AM transmission. However, FM communication
alternates the frequency of the transmitted signal.
Data that is transmitted via digital transmission may be digital messages that have origins for a
data source (a computer or a keyboard, for example). However, this transmitted data may also be
from an analog signal (a phone call or a video signal, for example). It may then be digitized into
a bit stream using pulse code modulation (or PCM) –or even more advanced source coding
schemes. The coding of the data is carried out using codec equipment.
There are a number of differences between analog and digital transmission, and it is important to
understand how conversions between analog and digital occur. Let's look first at the older form
of transmission, analog.
Analog Transmission
An analog wave form (or signal) is characterized by being continuously variable along amplitude
and frequency. In the case of telephony, for instance, when you speak into a handset, there are
changes in the air pressure around your mouth. Those changes in air pressure fall onto the
handset, where they are amplified and then converted into current, or voltage fluctuations. Those
fluctuations in current are an analog of the actual voice pattern—hence the use of the
term analog to describe these signals.

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 Figure 2. 2 Analog wave form

When it comes to an analog circuit what we also refer to as a voice-grade line—we need to also
define the frequency band in which it operates. The human voice, for example, can typically
generate frequencies from 100Hz to 10,000Hz, for a bandwidth of 9,900Hz. But the ear does not
require a vast range of frequencies to elicit meaning from ordinary speech; the vast majority of
sounds we make that constitute intelligible speech fall between 250Hz and 3,400Hz. So, the
phone company typically allotted a total bandwidth of 4,000Hz for voice transmission.
Remember that the total frequency spectrum of twisted-pair is 1MHz. To provision a voice-grade
analog circuit, bandwidth-limiting filters are put on that circuit to filter out all frequencies above
4,000Hz. That's why analog circuits can conduct only fairly low-speed data communications.
The maximum data rate over an analog facility is 33.6Kbps when there are analog loops at either
end.
Elicit meaning from ordinary speech; the vast majority of sounds we make that constitute
intelligible speech fall between 250Hz and 3,400Hz. So, the phone company typically allotted a
total bandwidth of 4,000Hz for voice transmission. Remember that the total frequency spectrum
of twisted-pair is 1MHz. To provision a voice-grade analog circuit, bandwidth-limiting filters are
put on that circuit to filter out all frequencies above 4,000Hz. That's why analog circuits can
conduct only fairly low-speed data communications. The maximum data rate over an analog
facility is 33.6Kbps when there are analog loops at either end.

Analog facilities have limited bandwidth, which means they cannot support high-speed data.
Another characteristic of analog is that noise is accumulated as the signal traverses the network.
As the signal moves across the distance, it loses power and becomes impaired by factors such as
moisture in the cable, dirt on a contact, and critters chewing on the cable somewhere in the
network. By the time the signal arrives at the amplifier, it is not only attenuated, it is also
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impaired and noisy. One of the problems with a basic amplifier is that it is a dumb device. All it
knows how to do is to add power, so it takes a weak and impaired signal, adds power to it, and
brings it back up to its original power level. But along with an increased signal, the amplifier
passes along an increased noise level. So in an analog network, each time a signal goes through
an amplifier, it accumulates noise. After you mix together coffee and cream, you can no longer
separate them. The same concept applies in analog networks: After you mix the signal and the
noise, you can no longer separate the two, and, as a result, you end up with very high error rates.

Digital Transmission

Digital transmission is quite different from analog transmission. For one thing, the signal is much
simpler. Rather than being a continuously variable wave form, it is a series of discrete pulses,
representing one bits and zero bits. Each computer uses a coding scheme that defines what
combinations of ones and zeros constitute all the characters in a character set (that is, lowercase
letters, uppercase letters, punctuation marks, digits, keyboard control functions).

Figure 2. 3 Digital transmission

How the ones and zeros are physically carried through the network depends on whether the
network is electrical or optical. In electrical networks, one bits are represented as high voltage,
and zero bits are represented as null, or low voltage. In optical networks, one bits are represented
by the presence of light, and zero bits are represented by the absence of light. The ones and
zeros—the on/off conditions—are carried through the network, and the receiving device
repackages the ones and zeros to determine what character is being represented. Because a
digital signal is easier to reproduce than an analog signal, we can treat it with a little less care in
the network. Rather than use dumb amplifiers, digital networks use regenerative repeaters, also
referred to as signal regenerators. As a strong, clean, digital pulse travels over a distance, it loses

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power, similar to an analog signal. The digital pulse, like an analog signal, is eroded by
impairments in the network. But the weakened and impaired signal enters the regenerative
repeater, where the repeater examines the signal to determine what was supposed to be a one and
what was supposed to be a zero. The repeater regenerates a new signal to pass on to the next
point in the network, in essence eliminating noise and thus vastly improving the error rate.

Transmission Impairments

The signal received may differ from the signal transmitted. The effect will degrade the signal
quality for analog signals and introduce bit errors for digital signals. There are three types
of transmission impairments: attenuation, delay distortion, and noise.
(1) Attenuation: The impairment is caused by the strength of signals that degrades with
distance over a transmission link. Three factors are related to the attenuation:

The received signal should have sufficient strength to be intelligently interpreted by a

receiver. An amplifier or a repeater is needed to boost the strength of the signal.

A signal should be maintained at a level higher than the noise so that error will not be
generated. Again, an amplifier or a repeater can be used.

Attenuation is an increasing function of frequency, with more attenuation at higher

frequency than at lower frequency. An equalizer can smooth out the effect of attenuation
across frequency bands, and an amplifier can amplify high frequencies more than low
frequencies.

(2)Delay distortion: The velocity of propagation of a signal through a guided medium varies
with frequencies; it is fast at the center of the frequency, but it falls off at the two edges of
frequencies. Equalization techniques can be used to smooth out the delay distortion. Delay
distortion is a major reason for the timing jitter problem, where the receiver clock deviates
from the incoming signal in a random fashion so that an incoming signal might arrive earlier
or late.

(3)Noise: Impairment occurs when an unwanted signal is inserted between transmission

and reception. There are four types of noises:

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 • Thermal noise: This noise is a function of temperature and bandwidth. It cannot be
eliminated. The thermal noise is proportional to the temperature and bandwidth as shown in the
equation: thermal noise = K(constant) *temperature *bandwith.

Intermodulation noise this noise is caused by nonlinearity in the transmission

system f 1; f2 frequencies could produce a signal at f1 + f2 or ABS (f1 − f2) and affect the
frequencies at f1 + f2 or ABS (f1 − f2).
• Cross talk: This type of noise is caused by electrical coupling in the nearby twisted pair or
by unwanted signal picked by microwave antennas. For example, sometimes when you are on
the telephone, you might hear someone else's conversation due to the cross talk problem.

• Impulse noise: Irregular pulses and short duration of relative high amplitude cause impulse
noise. This noise is also caused by lightning and faults in the communication system. It is not an
annoyance for analog data, but it is an annoyance for digital data. For example, 0.01 sec at 4800
bps causes 50 bits of distortion.

Activity 2.2

Discuss and list some examples of half duplex transmission mode?

Explain in details about parallel and serial data transmission mode?
Discuss on the unguided transmission media using examples?
Discus some common guided transmission medium with examples?

Data Transmission Mode

Data Transmission mode defines the direction of the flow of information between two
communication devices. It is also called Data Communication or Directional Mode. It specifies
the direction of the flow of information from one place to another in a computer network.
In the Open System Interconnection (OSI) Layer Model, the Physical Layer is dedicated to
data transmission in the network. It mainly decides the direction of data in which the data
needs to travel to reach the receiver system or node.

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So, in this module, we will learn about different data transmission modes based on the
direction of exchange, synchronization between the transmitter and receiver, and the number of
bits sent simultaneously in a computer network.
According to the Direction of Exchange of Information:
1. Simplex
Simplex is the data transmission mode in which the data can flow only in one direction, i.e.,
the communication is unidirectional. In this mode, a sender can only send data but can not
receive it. Similarly, a receiver can only receive data but cannot send it.

Figure 2. 4 Simplex transmission mode

This transmission mode is not so popular because we cannot perform two-way communication
between the sender and receiver in this mode. It is mainly used in the business field as in sales
that do not require any corresponding reply. It is similar to a one-way street.
For Example, Radio and TV transmission, keyboard, mouse, etc.
2. Half-Duplex

Half-Duplex is the data transmission mode in which the data can flow in both directions but in
one direction at a time. It is also referred to as Semi-Duplex. In other words, each station can
both transmit and receive the data but not at the same time. When one device is sending the
other can only receive and vice-versa.

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 Figure 2. 5 half duplex transmission mode

In this type of transmission mode, the entire capacity of the channel can be utilized for each
direction. Transmission lines can carry data in both directions, but the data can be sent only in
one direction at a time.

This type of data transmission mode can be used in cases where there is no need for
communication in both directions at the same time. It can be used for error detection when the
sender does not send or the receiver does not receive the data properly. In such cases, the data
needs to be transmitted again by the receiver.
For Example, Police radio, Internet Browsers, etc.

3. Full-Duplex
Full-Duplex is the data transmission mode in which the data can flow in both directions at the
same time. It is bi-directional in nature. It is two-way communication in which both the
stations can transmit and receive the data simultaneously.

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 Figure 2. 6 Full duplex transmission mode

Full-Duplex mode has double bandwidth as compared to the half-duplex. The capacity of the
channel is divided between the two directions of communication. This mode is used when
communication in both directions is required simultaneously.
For Example, a Telephone Network, in which both the persons can talk and listen to each other
simultaneously.
According to the synchronization between the transmitter and the receiver:
1. Synchronous
The Synchronous transmission mode is a mode of communication in which the bits are sent
one after another without any start/stop bits or gaps between them. Actually, both the sender
and receiver are paced by the same system clock. In this way, synchronization is achieved.
In a Synchronous mode of data transmission, bytes are transmitted as blocks in a continuous
stream of bits. Since there is no start and stop bits in the message block. It is the responsibility
of the receiver to group the bits correctly. The receiver counts the bits as they arrive and
groups them in eight bits unit. The receiver continuously receives the information at the same
rate that the transmitter has sent it. It also listens to the messages even if no bits are
transmitted.
In synchronous mode, the bits are sent successively with no separation between each character,
so it becomes necessary to insert some synchronization elements with the message, this is
called "Character-Level Synchronization".
For Example, if there are two bytes of data, say (10001101, 11001011) then it will be
transmitted in the synchronous mode as follows:

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 Figure 2. 7 Synchronous mode

For Example communication in CPU and RAM

2. Asynchronous
The Asynchronous transmission mode is a mode of communication in which a start and the
stop bit is introduced in the message during transmission. The start and stop bits ensure that the
data is transmitted correctly from the sender to the receiver.
Generally, the start bit is '0' and the end bit is '1'.Asynchronous here means 'asynchronous at
the byte level', but the bits are still synchronized. The time duration between each character is
the same and synchronized.
In an asynchronous mode of communication, data bits can be sent at any point in time. The
messages are sent at irregular intervals and only one data byte can be sent at a time. This type
of transmission mode is best suited for short-distance data transfer.
For Example, if there are two bytes of data, say (10001101, 11001011) then it will be
transmitted in the asynchronous mode as follows:

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 Figure 2. 8 Asynchronous mode

For Example, Data input from a keyboard to the computer.

According to the number of bits sent simultaneously in the network:
1. Serial
The Serial data transmission mode is a mode in which the data bits are sent serially one after
the other at a time over the transmission channel.

Figure 2. 9 Serial transmission mode

It needs a single transmission line for communication. The data bits are received in
synchronization with one another. So, there is a challenge of synchronizing the transmitter and
receiver.

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In serial data transmission, the system takes several clock cycles to transmit the data stream. In
this mode, the data integrity is maintained, as it transmits the data bits in a specific order, one
after the other.
This type of transmission mode is best suited for long-distance data transfer, or the amount of
data being sent is relatively small.
For Example, Data transmission between two computers using serial ports.
2. Parallel
The Parallel data transmission mode is a mode in which the data bits are sent parallelly at a
time. In other words, there is a transmission of n-bits at the same time simultaneously.

Figure 2. 10 Parallel transmission mode

Multiple transmission lines are used in such modes of transmission. So, multiple data bytes can
be transmitted in a single system clock. This mode of transmission is used when a large
amount of data has to be sent in a shorter duration of time. It is mostly used for short-distance
communication.
For n-bits, we need n-transmission lines. So, the complexity of the network increases but the
transmission speed is high. If two or more transmission lines are too close to each other, then
there may be a chance of interference in the data, degrading the signal quality.
For Example, Data transmission between computer and printer.

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Hence, after learning the various transmission modes, we can conclude that some points need
to be considered when selecting a data transmission mode:
• Transmission Rate.
• The Distance that it covers.
• Cost and Ease of Installation.
• The resistance of environmental conditions.
This is all about the various transmission modes in a computer network.

Transmission Media

Communication channels that are used to carry the data from the transmitters to the receivers
through the electromagnetic signals. The main function of this is to carry the data in the bits form
through the Local Area Network (LAN). In data communication, it works like a physical path
between the sender & the receiver. For instance, in a copper cable network the bits in the form of
electrical signals whereas in a fiber network, the bits are available in the form of light pulses.
The quality, as well as characteristics of data transmission, can be determined from the
characteristics of medium & signal. The properties of different transmission media are delay,
bandwidth, maintenance, cost, and easy installation.

Transmission media is a pathway that carries the information from sender to receiver. We use
different types of cables or waves to transmit data. Data is transmitted normally through
electrical or electromagnetic signals.
An electrical signal is in the form of current. An electromagnetic signal is series of
electromagnetic energy pulses at various frequencies. These signals can be transmitted through
copper wires, optical fibers, atmosphere, water and vacuum Different Medias have different
properties like bandwidth, delay, cost and ease of installation and maintenance. Transmission
media is also called Communication channel.

Types of Transmission Media

Transmission media is broadly classified into two groups.

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 Figure 2: 11 Transmission media types

Guided Media

This kind of transmission media is also known as wired otherwise bounded media. In this type,
the signals can be transmitted directly & restricted in a thin path through physical links.

The main features of guided media mainly include secure, high-speed, and used in small
distances. This kind of media is classified into three types which are discussed below.

A). Twisted Pair Cable

It includes two separately protected conductor wires. Normally, some pairs of cables are
packaged jointly in a protective cover.
Insulated copper wires arranged in regular spiral pattern.

• The oldest, least expensive, and most commonly used media

• reduce susceptibility to interference than straight pair wires (two straight parallel wires
tend to act as an antenna and pick up extraneous signals when compared to twisted pairs)
• Highly susceptible to electrical noise, interference, and ‘tapping’ of the signal as
compared to the other guided media
• Usually used for multiplexing multiple telephone lines, also used for transmitting digital
date for point-to-point links (e.g. the leased line for AAUNet)
• Arrangement of twisted pairs into group used for high-speed (10-100 Mbps) LAN

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 Figure 2. 12 Twisted pair cable

This is the most frequently used type of transmission media and it is available in two types.

1. UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair)

This UTP cable has the capacity to block interference. It doesn’t depend on a physical guard and
used in telephonic applications. The advantage of UTP is a low cost, very simple to install, and
high speed. The disadvantages of UTP is liable to exterior interference, transmits in fewer
distances, and less capacity.

Figure 2. 13 Unshielded Twisted pair cable

Types of UTP
Category 3 Cable

With 10 MHz bandwidth, used for telco voice and horizontal wiring for 10-Mbps
10Base-T Ethernet or 4-Mbps Token Ring.

Category 4 Cable

With 20 MHz bandwidth, used for 16-Mbps Token Ring.

Category 5 Cable

The single most popular flavor! With 100 MHz bandwidth, it can handle upto 100-Mbps.

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 2. Shielded Twisted Pair

STP cable includes a particular jacket for blocking outside interference. It is used in rapid data
rate Ethernet, in voice & data channels of telephone lines.
The main advantages of STP cable mainly include good speed, removes crosstalk. The main
disadvantages are hard to manufacture as well as install, It is expensive and bulky also

Figure 2. 14 Shielded Twisted pair cable

B) Coaxial Cable

This cable contains an external plastic cover and it includes two parallel conductors where each
conductor includes a separate protection cover. This cable is used to transmit data in two modes
like baseband mode as well as broadband mode. This cable is widely used in cable TVs & analog
TV networks.

The advantages of the coaxial cable include high bandwidth, noise immunity is good, low cost
and simple to install. The disadvantage of this cable is, the failure of cable can disturb the whole
network

Figure 2. 15 Coaxial cable

Most versatile medium used in LANs, Cable TV, VCR-to-TV connections

Noise immunity is better than twisted pair

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 Less susceptible to interference and cross talk but there still is attenuation and
thermal noise problem
Can go up to 185m (10Base2) or 500m(10Base5) without the need for an
amplifier/repeater
C) Optical Fiber Cable

This cable uses the notion of light reflected through a core that is made with plastic or glass. The
core is enclosed with less thick plastic or glass and it is known as the cladding, used for large
volume data transmission.
The main advantages of this cable include lightweight, capacity & bandwidth will be increased,
signal attenuation is less, etc. The disadvantages are high cost, fragile, installation &
maintenance is difficult and unidirectional.

Figure 2. 16 : Optical fiber cable

Two types of fiber optic cables

Multimode Fiber optic cable
Fiber optic cable where the light signal travels dispersed through the core
Core is usually 50-62m in diameter
Maximum distance signal travels without a repeater is 500m

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 Figure 2. 17 Multimode fiber optic cable
Single Mode fiber
• Fiber optic cable where the light signal travels in a single mode through the core

• m in diameterCore is usually less than 10

• Maximum distance signal travels without a repeater is 10km (with the appropriate
modulation up to 100km)

Figure 2. 18 Single mode fiber optic cable

Unguided (wireless transmission)

In unguided media transmission and reception are achieved by means of an antenna. It is also
known as unbounded otherwise wireless transmission media. It doesn’t require any physical
medium to transmit electromagnetic signals. The main features of this media are less secure; the
signal can be transmitted through air, and applicable for large distances. There are three types of
unguided media which are discussed below.

A). Radio waves

These waves are very easy to produce as well as penetrate through buildings. In this, the
transmitting & receiving antennas no need to align. The frequency range of these waves ranges

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from 3 kHz to 1GHz. These waves are used in AM & Fm radios for transmission. These waves
are classified into two types namely Terrestrial & Satellite.
1. Terrestrial Microwave
• Typically used where laying a cable is not practical

• Parabolic dish shaped antenna for directional and bar-like antenna for omnidirectional
transmission

• transmits/receives electromagnetic waves in the 2-40 GHz range

• Travels in a straight line (line-of-sight propagation)

• High data rates: 100’s Mbps

• Repeaters spaced 10 - 100 km apart

• Applications : telephone and data transmission- wireless LANs

Figure 2. 19 Terrestrial microwave

2. Satellite Microwave
• Uses satellite in geostationary (geosynchronous) 36,000 km) orbit(
• Source transmits signal to satellite which amplifies or repeats it, and retransmits down to
destinations
• Optimum transmission in 1 - 10 GHz range;
• Bandwidth of 100’s MHz
• 270ms Significant propagation delay about
• VSAT ( Very small Aperture Terminal) :- High speed data transmission using satellite

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 Figure 2. 20 Satellite microwave

B) Microwaves
It is a sightline transmission which means the transmitting & receiving antennas need to align
correctly with each other. The distance which is covered through the signal can be directly
proportional to the antenna’s height. The frequency range of microwaves ranges from 1GHz to
300GHz. These are extensively used in TV distribution & mobile phone communication

C) Infrared Waves

Infrared (IR) waves are used in extremely small distance communication as they cannot go
through obstacles. So it stops intrusion between systems. The range of frequency of these waves
is 300GHz to 400THz. These waves are used in TV remotes, keyboards, wireless mouse, printer,
etc.
• For short-range communication
o Remote controls for TVs, VCRs, and stereos
o Indoor wireless LANs

Review Questions for chapter 2

How Data Communication works?
List and explain Guided transmission mediums?
What is transmission impairments means?
How analog signals transmitted?
In which means signals transmit without guided medium?
How satellites provide data to the ground station?

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 CHAPTER THREE
COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK ARCHITECTURE

Network line Configuration

Line configuration refers to the way two or more communication devices attached to a link. Line
configuration is also referred to as connection. A Link is the physical communication pathway
that transfers data from one device to another. For communication to occur, two devices must be
connected in same way to the same link at the same time.
There are two possible line configurations.
1. Point-to-Point.
2. Multipoint.

Point-to-Point

A Point to Point Line Configuration Provide dedicated link between two devices use actual
length of wire or cable to connect the two end including microwave & satellite link. Infrared
remote control & tvs remote control.
The entire capacity of the channel is reserved for transmission between those two devices. Most
point-to-point line configurations use an actual length of wire or cable to connect the two ends,
but other options, such as microwave or satellite links, are also possible.
Point to point network topology is considered to be one of the easiest and most conventional
network topologies. It is also the simplest to establish and understand. To visualize, one can
consider point to point network topology as two phones connected end to end for a two way
communication

Figure 3. 1 Point to point network line Configuration

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Multipoint Configuration
Multipoint Configuration also known as Multidrop line configuration one or more than
two specific devices share a single link capacity of the channel is shared.
More than two devices share the Link that is the capacity of the channel is shared now. With
shared capacity, there can be two possibilities in a Multipoint Line Config:
• Spatial Sharing: If several devices can share the link simultaneously, its called Spatially
shared line configuration

• Temporal (Time) Sharing: If users must take turns using the link , then it’s called
Temporally shared or Time Shared Line Configuration

Figure 3. 2: Multiple point network line configurations

Activity 3.1
Discuss on the network devices?
What are the central devices among the network devices?
How to differentiate Switch and Hub network devices?
Discuss in details about functions of router?

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 Network Devices

Network devices, or networking hardware, are physical devices that are required for
communication and interaction between hardware on a computer network

1. Repeater – A repeater operates at the physical layer. Its job is to regenerate the signal over
the same network before the signal becomes too weak or corrupted so as to extend the length to
which the signal can be transmitted over the same network. An important point to be noted
about repeaters is that they do not amplify the signal. When the signal becomes weak, they
copy the signal bit by bit and regenerate it at the original strength. It is a 2 port device.
2. Hub – Hubs connect multiple computer networking devices together. A hub also acts as a
repeater in that it amplifies signals that deteriorate after traveling long distances over connecting
cables. A hub is the simplest in the family of network connecting devices because it connects
LAN components with identical protocols.
A hub can be used with both digital and analog data, provided its settings have been configured
to prepare for the formatting of the incoming data. For example, if the incoming data is in digital
format, the hub must pass it on as packets; however, if the incoming data is analog, then the hub
passes it on in signal form. Hubs do not perform packet filtering or addressing functions; they
just send data packets to all connected devices. Hubs operate at the Physical layer of the Open
Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. There are two types of hubs: simple and multiple port.
A hub is basically a multiport repeater. A hub connects multiple wires coming from different
branches, for example, the connector in star topology which connects different stations. Hubs
cannot filter data, so data packets are sent to all connected devices. In other words,
the collision domain of all hosts connected through Hub remains one. Also, they do not have
the intelligence to find out the best path for data packets which leads to inefficiencies and
Wastage.
• Active Hub: - These are the hubs that have their own power supply and can clean, boost,
and relay the signal along with the network. It serves both as a repeater as well as a wiring
center. These are used to extend the maximum distance between nodes.
• Passive Hub:- These are the hubs that collect wiring from nodes and power supply from
the active hub. These hubs relay signals onto the network without cleaning and boosting
them and can’t be used to extend the distance between nodes.

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• Intelligent Hub:- It works like active hubs and includes remote management capabilities.
They also provide flexible data rates to network devices. It also enables an administrator to
monitor the traffic passing through the hub and to configure each port in the hub.
3. Bridge – A bridge operates at the data link layer. A bridge is a repeater with add on the
functionality of filtering content by reading the MAC addresses of source and destination.
It is also used for interconnecting two LANs working on the same protocol. It has a single
input and single output port, thus making it a 2 port device.
Types of Bridges
• Transparent Bridges:- These are the bridge in which the stations are completely unaware
of the bridge’s existence i.e. whether or not a bridge is added or deleted from the network,
reconfiguration of the stations is unnecessary. These bridges make use of two processes i.e.
bridge forwarding and bridge learning.
• Source Routing Bridges:- In these bridges, routing operation is performed by the source
station and the frame specifies which route to follow. The host can discover the frame by
sending a special frame called the discovery frame, which spreads through the entire
network using all possible paths to the destination.

4. Switch – A switch is a multiport bridge with a buffer and a design that can boost its
efficiency (a large number of ports imply less traffic) and performance. A switch is a data
link layer device. The switch can perform error checking before forwarding data, which
makes it very efficient as it does not forward packets that have errors and forward good
packets selectively to the correct port only. In other words, the switch divides the collision
domain of hosts, but broadcast domain remains the same. Switches generally have a more
intelligent role than hubs. A switch is a multiport device that improves network efficiency.
The switch maintains limited routing information about nodes in the internal network, and it
allows connections to systems like hubs or routers. Strands of LANs are usually connected
using switches. Generally, switches can read the hardware addresses of incoming packets to
transmit them to the appropriate destination.
Using switches improves network efficiency over hubs or routers because of the virtual circuit
capability. Switches also improve network security because the virtual circuits are more difficult
to examine with network monitors. You can think of a switch as a device that has some of the
best capabilities of routers and hubs combined. A switch can work at either the Data Link layer

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or the Network layer of the OSI model. A multilayer switch is one that can operate at both layers,
which means that it can operate as both a switch and a router. A multilayer switch is a high-
performance device that supports the same routing protocols as routers.
Switches can be subject to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks; flood guards are used to
prevent malicious traffic from bringing the switch to a halt. Switch port security is important so
be sure to secure switches: Disable all unused ports and use DHCP snooping, ARP inspection
and MAC address filtering.
5. Routers –
Routers help transmit packets to their destinations by charting a path through the sea of
interconnected networking devices using different network topologies. Routers are intelligent
devices, and they store information about the networks they’re connected to. Most routers can be
configured to operate as packet-filtering firewalls and use access control lists (ACLs). Routers,
in conjunction with a channel service unit/data service unit (CSU/DSU), are also used to
translate from LAN framing to WAN framing. This is needed because LANs and WANs use
different network protocols. Such routers are known as border routers. They serve as the outside
connection of a LAN to a WAN, and they operate at the border of your network.

Router is also used to divide internal networks into two or more sub networks. Routers can also
be connected internally to other routers, creating zones that operate independently. Routers
establish communication by maintaining tables about destinations and local connections. A
router contains information about the systems connected to it and where to send requests if the
destination isn’t known. Routers usually communicate routing and other information using one
of three standard protocols: Routing Information Protocol (RIP), Border Gateway Protocol
(BGP) or Open Shortest Path First (OSPF).

Routers are your first line of defense, and they must be configured to pass only traffic that is
authorized by network administrators. The routes themselves can be configured as static or
dynamic. If they are static, they can only be configured manually and stay that way until
changed. If they are dynamic, they learn of other routers around them and use information about
those routers to build their routing tables.
Routers are general-purpose devices that interconnect two or more heterogeneous networks.
They are usually dedicated to special-purpose computers, with separate input and output network

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interfaces for each connected network. Because routers and gateways are the backbone of large
computer networks like the internet, they have special features that give them the flexibility and
the ability to cope with varying network addressing schemes and frame sizes through
segmentation of big packets into smaller sizes that fit the new network components. Each router
interface has its own Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) module, its own LAN address (network
card address) and its own Internet Protocol (IP) address. The router, with the help of a routing
table, has knowledge of routes a packet could take from its source to its destination. The routing
table, like in the bridge and switch, grows dynamically. Upon receipt of a packet, the router
removes the packet headers and trailers and analyzes the IP header by determining the source
and destination addresses and data type, and noting the arrival time. It also updates the router
table with new addresses not already in the table. The IP header and arrival time information is
entered in the routing table. Routers normally work at the Network layer of the OSI model.

A router is a device like a switch that routes data packets based on their IP addresses. The
router is mainly a Network Layer device. Routers normally connect LANs and WANs together
and have a dynamically updating routing table based on which they make decisions on routing
the data packets. Router divide broadcast domains of hosts connected through it.

Figure 3. 3 Router network device

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6. Gateway
Gateways normally work at the Transport and Session layers of the OSI model. At the Transport
layer and above, there are numerous protocols and standards from different vendors; gateways
are used to deal with them. Gateways provide translation between networking technologies such
as Open System Interconnection (OSI) and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
(TCP/IP). Because of this, gateways connect two or more autonomous networks, each with its
own routing algorithms, protocols, topology, domain name service, and network administration
procedures and policies.

Gateways perform all of the functions of routers and more. In fact, a router with added
translation functionality is a gateway. The function that does the translation between different
network technologies is called a protocol converter.

7. Modem

Modems (modulators-demodulators) are used to transmit digital signals over analog telephone
lines. Thus, digital signals are converted by the modem into analog signals of different
frequencies and transmitted to a modem at the receiving location. The receiving modem
performs the reverse transformation and provides a digital output to a device connected to a
modem, usually a computer. The digital data is usually transferred to or from the modem over a
serial line through an industry standard interface, RS-232. Many telephone companies offer DSL
services, and many cable operators use modems as end terminals for identification and
recognition of home and personal users. Modems work on both the Physical and Data Link
layers.

8. Access Point
While an access point (AP) can technically involve either a wired or wireless connection, it
commonly means a wireless device. An AP works at the second OSI layer, the Data Link layer,
and it can operate either as a bridge connecting a standard wired network to wireless devices or
as a router passing data transmissions from one access point to another.

Wireless access points (WAPs) consist of a transmitter and receiver (transceiver) device used to
create a wireless LAN (WLAN). Access points typically are separate network devices with a

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built-in antenna, transmitter and adapter. APs use the wireless infrastructure network mode to
provide a connection point between WLANs and a wired Ethernet LAN. They also have several
ports, giving you a way to expand the network to support additional clients. Depending on the
size of the network, one or more APs might be required to provide full coverage. Additional APs
are used to allow access to more wireless clients and to expand the range of the wireless network.
Each AP is limited by its transmission range — the distance a client can be from an AP and still
obtain a usable signal and data process speed. The actual distance depends on the wireless
standard, the obstructions and environmental conditions between the client and the AP. Higher
end APs have high-powered antennas, enabling them to extend how far the wireless signal can
travel.
APs might also provide many ports that can be used to increase the network’s size, firewall
capabilities and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) service. Therefore, we get APs
that are a switch, DHCP server, router and firewall.
9. NIC –
NIC or network interface card is a network adapter that is used to connect the computer to the
network. It is installed in the computer to establish a LAN. It has a unique id that is written on
the chip, and it has a connector to connect the cable to it. The cable acts as an interface
between the computer and router or modem. NIC card is a layer 2 device which means that it
works on both physical and data link layer of the network model.

Activity 3.2
Discuss on Connectionless and Connection oriented network?
Discus in details on logical and physical topologies?
Compare and contrast the four main physical topologies?

Network Topologies
Network topology refers to how various nodes, devices, and connections on your network are
physically or logically arranged in relation to each other. Think of your network as a city, and the
topology as the road map. Just as there are many ways to arrange and maintain a city—such as
making sure the avenues and boulevards can facilitate passage between the parts of town getting

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the most traffic—there are several ways to arrange a network. Each has advantages and
disadvantages and depending on the needs of your company, certain arrangements can give you a
greater degree of connectivity and security.

There are two approaches to network topology: physical and logical. Physical network topology,
as the name suggests, refers to the physical connections and interconnections between nodes and
the network—the wires, cables, and so forth. Logical network topology is a little more abstract
and strategic, referring to the conceptual understanding of how and why the network is arranged
the way it is, and how data moves through it.

The way a network is arranged can make or break network functionality, connectivity, and
protection from downtime. The question of, “What is network topology?” can be answered with
an explanation of the two categories in the network topology.
1. Physical – The physical network topology refers to the actual connections (wires, cables,
etc.) of how the network is arranged. Setup, maintenance, and provisioning tasks require
insight into the physical network.
2. Logical – The logical network topology is a higher-level idea of how the network is set
up, including which nodes connect to each other and in which ways, as well as how data
is transmitted through the network. Logical network topology includes any virtual and
cloud resources.
Effective network management and monitoring require a strong grasp of both the physical and
logical topology of a network to ensure your network is efficient and healthy.

What is Star Topology?

A star topology, the most common network topology, is laid out so every node in the network is
directly connected to one central hub via coaxial, twisted-pair, or fiber-optic cable. Acting as a
server, this central node manages data transmission—as information sent from any node on the
network has to pass through the central one to reach its destination—and functions as a repeater,
which helps prevent data loss.

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 Figure 3. 4 Star network topology
Advantages of Star Topology

Star topologies are common since they allow you to conveniently manage your entire network
from a single location. Because each of the nodes is independently connected to the central hub,
should one go down, the rest of the network will continue functioning unaffected, making the
star topology a stable and secure network layout?
Additionally, devices can be added, removed, and modified without taking the entire network
offline.
Disadvantages of Star Topology
On the flipside, if the central hub goes down, the rest of the network can’t function. But if the
central hub is properly managed and kept in good health, administrators shouldn’t have too many
issues.
The overall bandwidth and performance of the network are also limited by the central node’s
configurations and technical specifications, making star topologies expensive to set up and
operate.

What is Bus Topology?

A bus topology orients all the devices on a network along a single cable running in a single
direction from one end of the network to the other—which is why it’s sometimes called a “line
topology” or “backbone topology.” Data flow on the network also follows the route of the cable,
moving in one direction.

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 Figure 3. 5 Bus Network topology
Advantages of Bus Topology

Bus topologies are a good, cost-effective choice for smaller networks because the layout is
simple, allowing all devices to be connected via a single coaxial or RJ45 cable. If needed, more
nodes can be easily added to the network by joining additional cables.

Disadvantages of Bus Topology

However, because bus topologies use a single cable to transmit data, they’re somewhat
vulnerable. If the cable experiences a failure, the whole network go down, this can be time-
consuming and expensive to restore, which can be less of an issue with smaller networks.
Bus topologies are best suited for small networks because there’s only so much bandwidth, and
every additional node will slow transmission speeds.

What is Ring Topology?

Ring topology is where nodes are arranged in a circle (or ring). The data can travel through the
ring network in either one direction or both directions, with each device having exactly two
neighbors.

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 Figure 3. 6 Ring network Topology
Pros of Ring Topology
Since each device is only connected to the ones on either side, when data is transmitted, the
packets also travel along the circle, moving through each of the intermediate nodes until they
arrive at their destination. If a large network is arranged in a ring topology, repeaters can be used
to ensure packets arrive correctly and without data loss.
Only one station on the network is permitted to send data at a time, which greatly reduces the
risk of packet collisions, making ring topologies efficient at transmitting data without errors.
By and large, ring topologies are cost-effective and inexpensive to install, and the intricate point-
to-point connectivity of the nodes makes it relatively easy to identify issues or misconfigurations
on the network.
Cons of Ring Topology

Even though it’s popular, a ring topology is still vulnerable to failure without proper network
management. Since the flow of data transmission moves unidirectional between nodes along
each ring, if one node goes down, it can take the entire network with it. That’s why it’s
imperative for each of the nodes to be monitored and kept in good health. Nevertheless, even if
you’re vigilant and attentive to node performance, your network can still be taken down by a
transmission line failure.
Additionally, the entire network must be taken offline to reconfigure, add, or remove nodes. And
while that’s not the end of the world, scheduling downtime for the network can be inconvenient
and costly.

What is Tree Topology?

The tree topology structure gets its name from how the central node functions as a sort of trunk
for the network, with nodes extending outward in a branch-like fashion. However, where each
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node in a star topology is directly connected to the central hub, a tree topology has a parent-child
hierarchy to how the nodes are connected. Those connected to the central hub are connected
linearly to other nodes, so two connected nodes only share one mutual connection. Because the
tree topology structure is both extremely flexible and scalable, it’s often used for wide area
networks to support many spread-out devices.

Figure 3. 7 Tree network topology

Pros of Tree Topology
Combining elements of the star and bus topologies allows for the easy addition of nodes and
network expansion. Troubleshooting errors on the network is also a straightforward process, as
each of the branches can be individually assessed for performance issues.

Cons of Tree Topology

As with the star topology, the entire network depends on the health of the root node in a tree
topology structure. Should the central hub fail, the various node branches will become
disconnected, though connectivity within—but not between—branch systems will remain.

Because of the hierarchical complexity and linear structure of the network layout, adding more
nodes to a tree topology can quickly make proper management an unwieldy, not to mention
costly, experience. Tree topologies are expensive because of the sheer amount of cabling
required to connect each device to the next within the hierarchical layout.

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What is Mesh Topology?

A mesh topology is an intricate and elaborate structure of point-to-point connections where the
nodes are interconnected. Mesh networks can be full or partial mesh. Partial mesh topologies are
mostly interconnected, with a few nodes with only two or three connections, while full-mesh
topologies are surprise fully interconnected.

Figure 3. 8 Mesh network topology

The web-like structure of mesh topologies offers two different methods of data transmission:
routing and flooding. When data is routed, the nodes use logic to determine the shortest distance
from the source to destination, and when data is flooded, the information is sent to all nodes
within the network without the need for routing logic.

Advantages of Mesh Topology

Mesh topologies are reliable and stable, and the complex degree of interconnectivity between
nodes makes the network resistant to failure. For instance, no single device going down can
bring the network offline.

Disadvantages of Mesh Topology

Mesh topologies are incredibly labor-intensive. Each interconnection between nodes requires a
cable and configuration once deployed, so it can also be time-consuming to set up. As with other
topology structures, the cost of cabling adds up fast, and to say mesh networks require a lot of
cabling is an understatement.

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What is Hybrid Topology?

Hybrid topologies combine two or more different topology structures—the tree topology is a
good example, integrating the bus and star layouts. Hybrid structures are most commonly found
in larger companies where individual departments have personalized network topologies adapted
to suit their needs and network usage.

Figure 3. 9 Hybrid network topology

Advantages of Hybrid Topology

The main advantage of hybrid structures is the degree of flexibility they provide, as there are few
limitations on the network structure itself that a hybrid setup can’t accommodate.

Disadvantages of Hybrid Topology

However, each type of network topology comes with its own disadvantages, and as a network
grows in complexity, so too does the experience and know-how required on the part of the
admins to keep everything functioning optimally. There’s also the monetary cost to consider
when creating a hybrid network topology.

Connection-oriented and connectionless services

Connection-Oriented Services

In a connection-oriented service, each packet is related to a source/destination connection. These

packets are routed along a similar path, known as a virtual circuit. Thus, it provides an end-to-
end connection to the client for reliable data transfer. It delivers information in order without

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duplication or missing information. It does not congest the communication channel and the
buffer of the receiving device. The host machine requests a connection to interact and closes the
connection after the transmission of the data.

Mobile communication is an example of a connection-oriented service.

A connection-oriented service is one that establishes a dedicated connection between the
communicating entities before data communication commences. It is modeled after the telephone
system. To use a connection-oriented service, the user first establishes a connection, uses it and
then releases it. In connection-oriented services, the data streams/packets are delivered to the
receiver in the same order in which they have been sent by the sender.

Connection-oriented services may be of the following types −

• Reliable Message Stream: e.g. sequence of pages

• Reliable Byte Stream: e.g. song download
• Unreliable Connection: e.g. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)
Advantages of Connection-Oriented Services
• This is mostly a reliable connection.
• Congestions are less frequent.
• Sequencing of data packets is guaranteed.

• Problems related to duplicate data packets are alleviated.

• Suitable for long connection.

Disadvantages of Connection-Oriented Services

• Resource allocation is needed before communication. This often leads to under-utilized
network resources.
• The lesser speed of connection due to the time is taken for establishing and relinquishing
the connection.
• In the case of router failures or network congestions, there are no alternative ways to
continue communication.

Connectionless-Service

In connectionless service, a router treats each packet individually. The packets are routed
through different paths through the network according to the decisions made by routers. The
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network or communication channel does not guarantee data delivery from the host machine to
the destination machine in connectionless service.

The data to be transmitted is broken into packets. These independent packets are called data
grams in analogy with telegrams.

The packets contain the address of the destination machine. Connectionless service is equivalent
to the postal system. In the postal system, a letter is put in an envelope that contains the address
of the destination. It is then placed in a letterbox.

The letter finally delivers to the destination through the postal network. However, it does not
guarantee to appear in the addressee's letterbox.

Review Questions for chapter 3

Discus with the difference between physical and logical topologies?
List at least 10 network devices and discus on it?
What does that mean connection oriented?
Discus on network architecture?
What is the difference between Switch and Hub?
What is the Cos of Mesh topology?

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 CHAPTER FOUR
COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK PROTOCOLS

Network protocol
A network protocol is a set of established rules that dictate how to format, transmit and receive
data so that computer network devices from servers and routers to endpoints -- can communicate,
regardless of the differences in their underlying infrastructures, designs or standards.
To successfully send and receive information, devices on both sides of a communication
exchange must accept and follow protocol conventions. In networking, support for protocols can
be built into software, hardware or both.
Without computing protocols, computers and other devices would not know how to engage with
each other. As a result, except for specialty networks built around a specific architecture, few
networks would be able to function, and the internet as we know it wouldn't exist. Virtually
all network end users rely on network protocols for connectivity.

Network protocols break larger processes into discrete, narrowly defined functions and tasks
across every level of the network. In the standard model, known as the Open Systems
Interconnection (OSI) model, one or more network protocols govern activities at each layer in
the telecommunication exchange. Lower layers deal with data transport, while the upper layers in
the OSI model deal with software and applications.
A set of cooperating network protocols is called a protocol suite. The Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite, which is typically used in client-server models,
includes numerous protocols across layers -- such as the data, network, transport and application
layers -- working together to enable internet connectivity. These include the following:

• TCP, which uses a set of rules to exchange messages with other internet points at the
information packet level;

• User Datagram Protocol, or UDP, which acts as an alternative communication protocol to

TCP and is used to establish low-latency and loss-tolerating connections between
applications and the internet;

• IP, which uses a set of rules to send and receive messages at the level of IP addresses; and

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• Additional network protocols, including Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and File
Transfer Protocol (FTP), each of which has defined sets of rules to exchange and display
information.

Every packet transmitted and received over a network contains binary data. Most computing
protocols will add a header at the beginning of each packet in order to store information about
the sender and the message's intended destination. Some protocols may also include footer at the
end with additional information. Network protocols process these headers and footers as part of
the data moving among devices in order to identify messages of their own kind.

Activity 4.1
How network protocols works.
Discuss on Logical address, Physical address of the computer network?
Discuss on the TCP/ IP protocols and UDP protocols?

TCP/IP Protocol Suite

TCP/IP is a suite of protocols that can be used to connect dissimilar brands of computers and
network devices. The largest TCP/IP network is the Internet. The Internet was developed by the
U.S. DOD under the auspices of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA)
when DOD scientists were faced with the problem of linking thousands of computers running
different operating systems. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) is a
small organization within the Pentagon, but its impact on technology in general and on data
communications in particular has been huge. For all practical purposes, DARPA's programs and
funding created the Internet. You can think of the TCP/IP sui te as the lifeblood of the
Internet. The TCP/IP suite has become widely adopted, because it is an open protocol standard
that can be implemented on any platform regardless of the manufacturer. In addition, it is
independent of any physical network hardware. TCP/IP can be implemented on Ethernet, X.25,
and token ring, among other platforms.
Although there are different interpretations on how to describe TCP/IP within a layered model, it
is generally described as being composed of fewer than the seven used in the OSI model. The
TCP/IP protocol suite generally follows four-layer architecture.

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The IP portion of TCP/IP is the connectionless network layer protocol. It is sometimes called an
"unreliable" protocol, meaning that IP does not establish an end-to-end connection before
transmitting data grams and that it contains no error detection and recovery code. The datagram
is the packet format defined by IP. IP operates across the network and data link layers of the OSI
model and relies on the TCP protocol to ensure that the data reaches its destination correctly.

The heart of the IP portion of TCP/IP is a concept called the Internet address. This is a 32-bit
number assigned to every node on the network. IP addresses are written in a dotted decimal
format that corresponds to the 32-bit binary address. Each octet is assigned a number between 0
and 255. An example of an IP address in dotted decimal format is [Link]. This IP address
translated into a 32-bit binary number is:

00001100 00011111 01010000 00000001

An IP address is divided into two parts, a network ID and a host ID, but the format of these parts
depends on the class of the address. There are three main address classes: class A, class B, and
class C. The formats differ in the number of bits allocated to the network ID and host ID and are
distinguished by the first three bits of the 32 bit address.

The TCP portion of TCP/IP comes into operation once a packet is delivered to the correct
Internet address. In contrast to IP, which is a connectionless protocol, TCP is connection
oriented. It establishes a logical end-to-end connection between two communicating nodes or
devices. TCP operates at the transport layer of the OSI model and provides a virtual circuit
service between end-user applications, with reliable data transfer, which is lacking in the
datagram-oriented IP.

Software packages that follow the TCP standard run on each machine, establish a connection to
each other, and manage the communications exchanges. TCP provides the flow control, error
detection, and sequencing of the data; looks for responses; and takes the appropriate action to
replace missing data blocks.

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The end-to-end connection is established through the exchange of control information. This
exchange of information is called a three-way handshake. This handshake is necessary to
establish the logical connection and to allow the transmission of data to begin.

In its simplest form, host A would transmit to host B the synchronize sequence number bit set.
This tells host B that host A wishes to establish a connection and informs host B of the starting
sequence number for host A. Host B sends back to host A an acknowledgment and confirms its
starting sequence number. Host A acknowledges receipt of host B's transmission and begins the
transfer of data. Later, in this tutorial, I will explain how this three-way handshake can be
exploited to disrupt the operation of a system.

Another important TCP/IP protocol is the user datagram protocol (UDP). Like TCP, UDP
operates at the transport layer. The major difference between TCP and UDP is that UDP is a
connectionless datagram protocol. UDP gives applications direct access to a datagram delivery
service-like the service IP provides. This allows applications to exchange data with a minimum
of protocol overhead. Figure below illustrates the hierarchical relationship between IP and
TCP/UDP and the applications that rely upon the protocols.

Figure 4. 1 TCP/UDP protocols

The UDP protocol is best suited for applications that transmit small amounts of data, where the
process of creating connections and ensuring delivery may be greater than the work of simply
retransmitting the data. Another situation where UDP would be appropriate is when an
application provides its own method of error checking and ensuring delivery.

Four Layers of TCP/IP model

In this TCP/IP tutorial, we will explain different layers and their functionalities in TCP/IP model:

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The functionality of the TCP IP model is divided into four layers, and each includes specific
protocols.
TCP/IP is a layered server architecture system in which each layer is defined according to a
specific function to perform. All these four TCP IP layers work collaboratively to transmit the
data from one layer to another.
• Application Layer
• Transport Layer
• Internet Layer
• Network Interface

Figure 4. 2 Four Layers of TCP/IP model

Application Layer
Application layer interacts with an application program, which is the highest level of OSI model.
The application layer is the OSI layer, which is closest to the end-user. It means the OSI
application layer allows users to interact with other software application.

Application layer interacts with software applications to implement a communicating

component. The interpretation of data by the application program is always outside the scope of
the OSI model.
Example of the application layer is an application such as file transfer, email, remote login, etc.

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The functions of the Application Layers are:
• Application-layer helps you to identify communication partners, determining resource
availability, and synchronizing communication.
• It allows users to log on to a remote host
• This layer provides various e-mail services
• This application offers distributed database sources and access for global information
about various objects and services.
Transport Layer
Transport layer builds on the network layer in order to provide data transport from a process on a
source system machine to a process on a destination system. It is hosted using single or multiple
networks, and also maintains the quality of service functions.
It determines how much data should be sent where and at what rate. This layer builds on the
message which is received from the application layer. It helps ensure that data units are delivered
error-free and in sequence.
Transport layer helps you to control the reliability of a link through flow control, error control,
and segmentation or de-segmentation.
The transport layer also offers an acknowledgment of the successful data transmission and sends
the next data in case no errors occurred. TCP is the best-known example of the transport layer.

Important functions of Transport Layers:

• It divides the message received from the session layer into segments and numbers them to
make a sequence.
• Transport layer makes sure that the message is delivered to the correct process on the
destination machine.
• It also makes sure that the entire message arrives without any error else it should be
retransmitted.

Internet Layer

An internet layer is a second layer of TCP/IP layes of the TCP/IP model. It is also known as a
network layer. The main work of this layer is to send the packets from any network, and any
computer still they reach the destination irrespective of the route they take.

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The Internet layer offers the functional and procedural method for transferring variable length
data sequences from one node to another with the help of various networks.
Message delivery at the network layer does not give any guaranteed to be reliable network layer
protocol.
Layer-management protocols that belong to the network layer are:
1. Routing protocols
2. Multicast group management
3. Network-layer addresses assignment.

The Network Interface Layer

Network Interface Layer is this layer of the four-layer TCP/IP model. This layer is also called a
network access layer. It helps you to define details of how data should be sent using the network.
It also includes how bits should optically be signaled by hardware devices which directly
interface with a network medium, like coaxial, coaxial, fiber, or twisted-pair cables.
A network layer is a combination of the data line and defined in the article of OSI reference
model. This layer defines how the data should be sent physically through the network. This layer
is responsible for the transmission of the data between two devices on the same network.

Most Common TCP/IP Protocols

Some widely used most common TCP/IP protocol are:

TCP: Transmission Control Protocol is an internet protocol suite which breaks up the message
into TCP Segments and reassembling them at the receiving side.
IP: An Internet Protocol address that is also known as an IP address is a numerical label. It is
assigned to each device that is connected to a computer network which uses the IP for
communication. Its routing function allows internetworking and essentially establishes the
Internet. Combination of IP with a TCP allows developing a virtual connection between a
destination and a source.
HTTP: The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is a foundation of the World Wide Web. It is used for
transferring web pages and other such resources from the HTTP server or web server to the web
client or the HTTP client. Whenever you use a web browser like Google Chrome or Firefox, you

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are using a web client. It helps HTTP to transfer web pages that you request from the remote
servers.

SMTP: SMTP stands for Simple mail transfer protocol. This protocol supports the e-mail is
known as a simple mail transfer protocol. This protocol helps you to send the data to another e-
mail address.

SNMP: SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol. It is a framework which is
used for managing the devices on the internet by using the TCP/IP protocol.

DNS: DNS stands for Domain Name System. An IP address that is used to identify the
connection of a host to the internet uniquely. However, users prefer to use names instead of
addresses for that DNS.

TELNET: TELNET stands for Terminal Network. It establishes the connection between the
local and remote computer. It established connection in such a manner that you can simulate
your local system at the remote system.

FTP: FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is a mostly used standard protocol for transmitting
the files from one machine to another.

Advantages of the TCP/IP model

Here, are pros/benefits of using the TCP/IP model:

• It helps you to establish/set up a connection between different types of computers.

• It operates independently of the operating system.
• It supports many routing-protocols.
• It enables the internetworking between the organizations.
• TCP/IP model has highly scalable client-server architecture.
• It can be operated independently.
• Supports a number of routing protocols.
• It can be used to establish a connection between two computers.

Disadvantages of the TCP/IP model

Here, are few drawbacks of using the TCP/IP model:

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 • TCP/IP is a complicated model to set up and manage.
• The shallow/overhead of TCP/IP is higher-than IPX (Internetwork Packet Exchange).
• In this, model the transport layer does not guarantee delivery of packets.
• Replacing protocol in TCP/IP is not easy.
• It has no clear separation from its services, interfaces, and protocols.

Activity 4.2
Discuss on the TCP/IP layers and OSI layers
Why IP addressing is important for computer networks?
Discus on the common TCP/IP protocols?
How data transfers from source to Destination

Open System Interconnection (OSI) reference Model?

The OSI Model is a logical and conceptual model that defines network communication used by
systems open to interconnection and communication with other systems. The Open System
Interconnection (OSI Model) also defines a logical network and effectively describes computer
packet transfer by using various layers of protocols.

Characteristics of OSI Model

Here are some important characteristics of the OSI model:
• A layer should only be created where the definite levels of abstraction are needed.
• The function of each layer should be selected as per the internationally standardized
protocols.
• The number of layers should be large so that separate functions should not be put in the
same layer. At the same time, it should be small enough so that architecture doesn’t
become very complicated.
• In the OSI model, each layer relies on the next lower layer to perform primitive
functions. Every level should able to provide services to the next higher layer
• Changes made in one layer should not need changes in other lavers.
Why of OSI Model?
• Helps you to understand communication over a network
• Troubleshooting is easier by separating functions into different network layers.

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 • Helps you to understand new technologies as they are developed.
• Allows you to compare primary functional relationships on various network layers.

History of OSI Model

Here are essential landmarks from the history of OSI model:

• In the late 1970s, the ISO conducted a program to develop general standards and methods
of networking.
• In 1973, an Experimental Packet Switched System in the UK identified the requirement
for defining the higher-level protocols.
• In the year 1983, OSI model was initially intended to be a detailed specification of actual
interfaces.
• In 1984, the OSI architecture was formally adopted by ISO as an international standard

Layers of the OSI Model

OSI model is a layered server architecture system in which each layer is defined according to a
specific function to perform. All these seven layers work collaboratively to transmit the data
from one layer to another.
• The Upper Layers: It deals with application issues and mostly implemented only in
software. The highest is closest to the end system user. In this layer, communication from
one end-user to another begins by using the interaction between the application layer. It
will process all the way to end-user.
• The Lower Layers: These layers handle activities related to data transport. The physical
layer and data link layers also implemented in software and hardware.
Upper and lower layers further divide network architecture into seven different layers as below
• Application
• Presentation
• Session
• Transport
• Network, Data-link
• Physical layers

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 Figure 4. 3 OSI layers
Physical Layer
The physical layer helps you to define the electrical and physical specifications of the data
connection. This level establishes the relationship between a device and a physical transmission
medium. The physical layer is not concerned with protocols or other such higher-layer items.
Examples of hardware in the physical layer are network adapters, ethernet, repeaters, networking
hubs, etc
Data Link Layer:
Data link layer corrects errors which can occur at the physical layer. The layer allows you to
define the protocol to establish and terminates a connection between two connected network
devices.
It is IP address understandable layer, which helps you to define logical addressing so that any
endpoint should be identified.
The layer also helps you implement routing of packets through a network. It helps you to define
the best path, which allows you to take data from the source to the destination.
The data link layer is subdivided into two types of sublayers:
1. Media Access Control (MAC) layer- It is responsible for controlling how device in a
network gain access to medium and permits to transmit data.

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 2. Logical link control layer- This layer is responsible for identity and encapsulating
network-layer protocols and allows you to find the error.

Important Functions of Data link Layer:

• Framing which divides the data from Network layer into frames.
• Allows you to add header to the frame to define the physical address of the source and
the destination machine
• Adds Logical addresses of the sender and receivers
• It is also responsible for the sourcing process to the destination process delivery of the
entire message.
• It also offers a system for error control in which it detects retransmits damage or lost
frames.
• Data link layer also provides a mechanism to transmit data over independent networks
which are linked together.
Transport Layer:
The transport layer builds on the network layer to provide data transport from a process on a
source machine to a process on a destination machine. It is hosted using single or multiple
networks, and also maintains the quality of service functions.
It determines how much data should be sent where and at what rate. This layer builds on the
messages which are received from the application layer. It helps ensure that data units are
delivered error-free and in sequence.
Transport layer helps you to control the reliability of a link through flow control, error control,
and segmentation or desegmentation.
The transport layer also offers an acknowledgment of the successful data transmission and sends
the next data in case no errors occurred. TCP is the best-known example of the transport layer.
Important functions of Transport Layers:
• It divides the message received from the session layer into segments and numbers them to

make a sequence.
• Transport layer makes sure that the message is delivered to the correct process on the
destination machine.

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 • It also makes sure that the entire message arrives without any error else it should be
retransmitted.
Network Layer:
The network layer provides the functional and procedural means of transferring variable length
data sequences from one node to another connected in “different networks”.
Message delivery at the network layer does not give any guaranteed to be reliable network layer
protocol.
Layer-management protocols that belong to the network layer are:
1. routing protocols
2. multicast group management
3. Network-layer addresses assignment.
Session Layer
Session Layer controls the dialogues between computers. It helps you to establish starting and
terminating the connections between the local and remote application.
Important function of Session Layer:
• It establishes, maintains, and ends a session.
• Session layer enables two systems to enter into a dialog
• It also allows a process to add a checkpoint to steam of data.
Presentation Layer

Presentation layer allows you to define the form in which the data is to exchange between the
two communicating entities. It also helps you to handles data compression and data encryption.
This layer transforms data into the form which is accepted by the application. It also formats and
encrypts data which should be sent across all the networks. This layer is also known as a syntax
layer.
The function of Presentation Layers:
• Character code translation from ASCII to EBCDIC.
• Data compression: Allows reducing the number of bits that needs to be transmitted on the
network.
• Data encryption: Helps you to encrypt data for security purposes — for example,
password encryption.

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 • It provides a user interface and support for services like email and file transfer.
Application Layer

Application layer interacts with an application program, which is the highest level of OSI model.
The application layer is the OSI layer, which is closest to the end-user. It means OSI application
layer allows users to interact with other software application.
Application layer interacts with software applications to implement a communicating
component. The interpretation of data by the application program is always outside the scope of
the OSI model.
Example of the application layer is an application such as file transfer, email, remote login, etc.
The functions of the Application Layers are:
• Application-layer helps you to identify communication partners, determining resource
availability, and synchronizing communication.
• It allows users to log on to a remote host
• This layer provides various e-mail services
• This application offers distributed database sources and access for global information
about various objects and services.
Differences between OSI and TCP/IP models

Figure 4. 4 Difference between model and TCP/IP layers

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Difference between OSI and TCP/IP model
Here, are some important differences between the OSI and TCP/IP model:

OSI Model TCP/IP model

It is developed by ISO (International Standard It is developed by ARPANET (Advanced

Organization) Research Project Agency Network).

TCP/IP doesn’t have any clear distinguishing

OSI model provides a clear distinction between
points between services, interfaces, and
interfaces, services, and protocols.
protocols.

OSI refers to Open Systems Interconnection. TCP refers to Transmission Control Protocol.

OSI uses the network layer to define routing

TCP/IP uses only the Internet layer.
standards and protocols.

OSI follows a vertical approach. TCP/IP follows a horizontal approach.

OSI model use two separate layers physical and

data link to define the functionality of the bottom TCP/IP uses only one layer (link).
layers.

OSI layers have seven layers. TCP/IP has four layers.

OSI model, the transport layer is only connection- A layer of the TCP/IP model is both
oriented. connection-oriented and connectionless.

In the OSI model, the data link layer and physical In TCP, physical and data link are both
are separate layers. combined as a single host-to-network layer.

Session and presentation layers are not a part of the There is no session and presentation layer in
TCP model. TCP model.

It is defined after the advent of the Internet. It is defined before the advent of the internet.

The minimum size of the OSI header is 5 bytes. Minimum header size is 20 bytes.

Table 4.1: Difference between OSI reference model and TCP/IP Conceptual layers

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 Network Standards and standardization bodies

Networking standards define the rules for data communications that are needed for
interoperability of networking technologies and processes. Standards help in creating and
maintaining open markets and allow different vendors to compete on the basis of the quality of
their products while being compatible with existing market products.
During data communication, a number of standards may be used simultaneously at the different
layers. The commonly used standards at each layer are −
• Application layer − HTTP, HTML, POP, H.323, IMAP
• Transport layer − TCP, SPX
• Network layer −IP, IPX
• Data link layer − Ethernet IEEE 802.3, X.25, Frame Relay
• Physical layer −RS-232C (cable), V.92 (modem)
Standards Organizations
Some of the noted standards organizations are
• International Standards Organization (ISO)
• International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
• Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE)
• American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
• Internet Research Task Force (IETF)
• Electronic Industries Association (EIA)

Review Questions for chapter 4

What is network Protocol?

What is the difference between logical and physical address?
What is IP addressing?
What is the difference between OSI references model and TCP/IP conceptual layer?
List and discus at least 6 protocols under Application layer?
What is network Standardization means?

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 CHAPTER FIVE

LOCAL AND WIDE AREA NETWORKS

A LAN is a computer network that consists of access points, cables, routers, and switches that
enable devices to connect to web servers and internal servers within a single building, campus, or
home network, and to other LANs via Wide Area Networks (WAN) or Metropolitan Area
Network (MAN). Devices on a LAN, typically personal computers and workstations, can share
files and be accessed by each other over a single Internet connection.
A router assigns IP addresses to each device on the network and facilitates a shared Internet
connection between all the connected devices.

Activity 5.1
What is the minimum requirement to create LAN network? Discuss on it?
If you want to grant broadband internet connection from service provider, what
are the procedures and how the internet connection addresses to your home?
Why some topologies selected for only LAN purpose?

LAN topologies (bus, ring, star)

LAN physical topology defines the geographical arrangement of networking devices. Topologies
are driven fundamentally by two network connection types:
A point-to-point connection is a direct link between two devices. For example, when you attach
your computer to a printer, you have created a point-to-point link. In networking terms, most of
the today’s point-to-point connections are associated with modems and PSTN (Public Switched
Telephone Network) communications because only two devices share point-to-point
connections; it defeats the purpose of a shared network.

Bus Topology

The physical bus topology is the simplest and most widely used of the network designs. It
consists of one continuous length of cabling (trunk) and a terminating resistor (terminator) at
each end. The data communications message travels along the bus in both directions until it is
picked up by a workstation or server NIC.

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If the message is missed or not recognized, it reaches the end of the cabling and dissipates at the
terminator. All nodes in the bus topology have equal access to the trunk – no discriminating here.
This is accomplished using short drop cables or direct T-connectors.
This design is easy to install because the backbone trunk traverses the LAN as one cable
segment. This minimizes the amount of transmission media required. Also, the number of
devices and length of the trunk can be easily expanded.

Figure 5. 1 Bus topology network

Advantages of Bus Topology:

1. It uses established standards and it is relatively easy to install.
2. Requires fewer media than other topologies.
Disadvantages of Bus Topology:
1. The bus networks are difficult to reconfigure, especially when the acceptable number of
connections or maximum distances have been reached.
2. They are also difficult to troubleshoot because everything happens on a single media
segment. This can have dangerous consequences because any break in the cabling brings
the network to its knees.

Ring Topology

As its name implies, the physical ring topology is a circular loop of point-to-point links. Each
device connects directly or indirectly to the ring through an interface device or drop cable.

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Messages travel around the ring from node to node in very organized manner. Each workstation
checks the messages for a matching destination address.
If the address doesn’t match, the node simply regenerates the message and sends it on its way. If
the address matches, the node accepts the message and sends a reply to the originating sender.
Initially, ring topologies are moderately simple to install; however, they require more media than
bus systems because the loop must be closed.
Once your ring has been installed, it’s a bit more difficult to reconfigure. Ring segments must be
divided or replaced every time they’re changed. Moreover, any break in the loop can affect all
devices on the network.

Figure 5. 2 Ring topology network

Advantages of Ring Topology:

1. They are very easy to troubleshoot because each device incorporates a repeater.
2. A special internal feature called becoming, allows the troubled workstation to identify
themselves quickly.
Disadvantages of Ring Topology:
1. It is considerably difficult to install and reconfigure ring topology.
2. Media failure on unidirectional or single loop causes complete network failure.

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Star Topology

The Physical star topology uses a central controlling hub with dedicated legs pointing in all
directions – like points of a star. Each network devices has a dedicated point-to-point link to the
central hub. This strategy prevents troublesome collisions and keeps the line of communication
open and free of traffic.

Star topologies are somewhat difficult to install because each device gets its own dedicated
segment. Obviously, they require a great deal of cabling. This design provides an excellent
platform for reconfiguration and troubleshooting.
Changes to the network are as simple as plugging another segment into the hub. In addition, a
break in the LAN is easy to isolate and doesn’t affect the rest of the network.

Figure 5. 3 Star topology network

Advantages of Star Topology:

1. Relatively easy to configure.
2. Easy to troubleshoot.
3. Media faults are automatically isolated to the failed segment.
Disadvantages of Star Topology:
1. Requires more cable than most topologies.
2. Moderately difficult to install.’

LAN technologies

• Ethernet: This technology is the most popular among all other LAN technologies on this
list. Covered under IEEE standards 802.3, simplicity, low-cost investment, backward
compatibility, noise resistance, and so on make it a popular choice over others. Ethernet

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 works on both layers - Layer 1 and Layer 2 on the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI)
model.
Ethernet technology has evolved over the years, and today it is distinguished into the
following types based on their speeds.
o 10 Mbit/s: This is the first iteration of this technology, which was introduced in
1983. It is also referred to as 10Base5.
o Fast Ethernet: Introduced in 1995, this Ethernet type is designed to carry 100
Mbit/s. This type of Ethernet is covered under IEEE 802.3u standard. 100Base-TX
is the most popular type of Ethernet physical layer of the Fast Ethernet. Here 100
refers to the transmission speed of 100 Mbit/s; BASE stands for baseband signaling;
and T & F refers to the signal carrying medium, which can be a Twisted Pair Cable
or a Fiber Optic Cable. However, the last character X or 4 refers to the signal code.
The X is a place holder for TX and FX.
o Gigabit Ethernet: Designed for carrying 1 gigabit or 1 billion bits per second, this
standard was introduced in 1999. Gigabit Ethernet replaced Fast Ethernet and was
developed for meeting the increasing speed requirements of Voice over IP (VoIP)
and multimedia networks. 1000BASE-T is the most popular version of Gigabit
Ethernet. It is defined under IEEE 802.3ab standard.
o 10 Gigabit Ethernet: One of the most recent Ethernet standards, 10 Gigabit
Ethernet is designed to transfer 10 Gbits/seconds, which makes it faster than Gigabit
Ethernet. This standard makes use of fiber optic cables.
• Power Over Ethernet: This standard can transmit electric power and data on the same
cable. Generally known as PoE, this standard is used to connect devices such as Internet
Protocol (IP) cameras, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones. It makes use of the
Ethernet Cable 5 or higher category. It doesn’t require any external AC cord or adapter.
Owing to its distinct advantages PoE has emerged as a popular Ethernet standard over the
years and is today used to connect various types of wireless Ethernet devices.
o Token Ring: This technology was developed by IBM and it uses three-byte frames
to connect computers. These three-byte frames are known as tokens, and they travel
along servers or computers forming a logical structure of ring. The token ring

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 network has data transfer rates of 4, 16, and 100 Mbps. These networks were largely
used in corporate environments, but today are getting replaced by Ethernet.
o Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM): It is a fast communication technique,
which is cell-based. This telecommunication standard is defined by ITU and ANSI.
It is used for transferring various types of signals in the network. One of the key
advantages of ATM is that it requires no separate overlay networks for signal
transmission. ATM can connect points in close and farther geographical locations.
o ARCNET: It stands for Attached Resource Computer NETwork, which was used
for connecting microcomputers in the 1980s. It was mainly used for automation
tasks in offices. This technology is nowadays used in industrial controls.
o FDDI: This stands for fiber distributed data interface and is another LAN
technology in use today. It made use of fiber optic cables, and can transmit up to 100
Mbit/seconds. This LAN technology can deliver up to 200 kms, and it uses two
rings. The first ring acts as a primary backup and second ring acts as a secondary
backup. The primary ring has 100 Mbit/seconds capacity, the secondary ring can
also carry another 100 Mbit/seconds, thereby adding to 200 Mbit/s.
As now the role played by each of these LAN technologies is well persuaded, it is important to
use the right type of device for achieving the desired result. Owing to the increasing using of
networking, today, you can find LAN connectivity solutions with various manufacturers.
However, they differ in terms of configurations, performance, and prices. It is always
recommended to source these technology devices from trusted manufacturers like VERSITRON.
The company has been providing networking connectivity solutions, since 1958. Fiber optic
network switches, fiber optic media converters, fiber optic multiplexers, and so on are a few
popular products in its inventory. These solutions are employed in thousands of critical
applications across the globe.

Large networks and Wide areas Networks

As described above, wide area networks are a form of telecommunication networks that can
connect devices from multiple locations and across the globe. WANs are the largest and most
expansive forms of computer networks available to date.

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Wide Area Network, or WAN, is a geographically distributed network composed of local area
networks (LANs) joined into a single large network using services provided by common carriers.
Wide area networks (WANS) are commonly implemented in enterprise networking
environments in which company offices are in different cities, states, or countries or on different
continents.
WAN technologies were previously limited to expensive leased lines such as T1 lines, slow
packet-switching services such as X.25, cheap but low-bandwidth solutions such as modems, and
dial-up Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) connections, but this has changed
considerably in recent years. Frame relay services provide high-speed packet-switching services
that offer more bandwidth than X.25, and virtual private networks (VPNs) created using Internet
Protocol (IP) tunneling technologies enable companies to securely connect branch offices by
using the Internet as a backbone service.
Intranets and extranets provide remote and mobile users with access to company resources and
applications and provide connectivity with business partners and resellers. Wireless networking
technologies allow roaming users to access network resources by using cell-based
technologies. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) services provide T1 speeds at much lower costs than
dedicated T1 circuits. These and other new technologies continue to evolve and proliferate,
allowing enterprise network administrators to implement and administer a highly diverse range
of WAN solutions.

Wide Area Networks disadvantages

• WAN networks are much more expensive than home or corporate intranets.
• WANs that cross international and other territorial boundaries fall under different legal
jurisdictions. Disputes can arise between governments over ownership rights and network
usage restrictions.
• Global WANs require the use of undersea network cables to communicate across continents.
Undersea cables are subject to sabotage and also unintentional breaks from ships and weather
conditions. Compared to underground landlines, undersea cables tend to take much longer
and cost much more to repair.
These networks are often established by service providers that then lease their WAN to
businesses, schools, governments or the public. These customers can use the network to relay

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and store data or communicate with other users, no matter their location, as long as they have
access to the established WAN. Access can be granted via different links, such as virtual private
networks (VPNs) or lines, wireless networks, cellular networks or internet access.
For international organizations, WANs allow them to carry out their essential daily functions
without delay. Employees from anywhere can use a business’s WAN to share data, communicate
with coworkers or simply stay connected to the greater data resource center for that
organization. Certified network professionals help organizations maintain their internal wide area
network, as well as other critical IT infrastructure.
In its simplest form, a wide-area network (WAN) is a collection of local-area networks (LANs)
or other networks that communicate with one another. A WAN is essentially a network of
networks, with the Internet the world's largest WAN.
Today, there are several types of WANs, built for a variety of use cases that touch virtually every
aspect of modern life.

5.3.1 Types of WAN technologies

Packet switching

Packet switching is a method of data transmission in which a message is broken into several
parts, called packets, that are sent independently, in triplicate, over whatever route is optimum
for each packet, and reassembled at the destination. Each packet contains a piece part, called the
payload, and an identifying header that includes destination and reassembly information. The
packets are sent in triplicate to check for packet corruption. Every packet is verified in a process
that compares and confirms that at least two copies match. When verification fails, a request is
made for the packet to be re-sent.
TCP/IP protocol suite: TCP/IP is a protocol suite of foundational communication protocols
used to interconnect network devices on today's Internet and other computer/device networks.
TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol.
Router

A router is a networking device typically used to interconnect LANs to form a wide area network
(WAN) and as such is referred to as a WAN device. IP routers use IP addresses to determine
where to forward packets. An IP address is a numeric label assigned to each connected network
device.

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Overlay network

An overlay network is a data communications technique in which software is used to create

virtual networks on top of another network, typically a hardware and cabling infrastructure. This
is often done to support applications or security capabilities not available on the underlying
network.
Packet over SONET/SDH (PoS)
Packet over SONET is a communication protocol used primarily for WAN transport. It defines
how point-to-point links communicate when using optical fiber and SONET (Synchronous
Optical Network) or SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) communication protocols.
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a network routing-optimization technique. It directs
data from one node to the next using short path labels rather than long network addresses, to
avoid time-consuming table lookups.

ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) is a switching technique common in early data networks,
which has been largely superseded by IP-based technologies. ATM uses asynchronous time-
division multiplexing to encode data into small, fixed-sized cells. By contrast, today's IP-based
Ethernet technology uses variable packet sizes for data.

Review Questions for chapter 5

Discus on LAN Technologies?
Discus on LAN Topologies?
Discus on WAN Technologies?

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 CHAPTER SEX

CLIENT SERVER COMPUTING

Web Technologies

Web technology is the establishment and use of mechanisms that make it possible for different
computers and devices to communicate and share resources. Web technologies are infrastructural
building blocks of any effective computer network.
Web technologies are infrastructural building blocks of any effective computer network: local
area network, metropolitan area network or a wide area network, such as the Internet.
Communication on a computer could never be as effective as they are without the plethora of
Web technologies in existence

Activity 6.1
How client and server communicate each other?
Discuss on client, standalone and server computer?
Discuss on web technologies?

What is the use of Web technology?

A variety of Web technology is vital to the function and success of many businesses.
→These include online appointment scheduling programs, websites and a way for customers to
chat with representatives. Also, Web technology makes it possible for businesses to collect data
on their customers to further customize their services.

How web technologies are developed?

By using Markup Languages:

→Markup languages like HTML, CSS, and XML are part of Web technology.
→These languages tell computers in text how to format, layout and style Web pages and
programs.
→Two types of markup languages include procedural markup and descriptive markup. Additional
types of languages include CGI and HTTP.

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Programming Languages:
Programming languages include Perl, C#, Java and Visual Basic .NET. These languages are used
by Web developers to create websites and applications. Each language has pros and cons, and
most developers know several different types to help them achieve their goals.

HTML: The Foundation of any Web Site. HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language) is the glue
that holds together every web site. Like building a house, you always build a strong foundation
first. For any site, HTML is that foundation. HTML is an open-source language (i.e. not owned by
anyone), which is easy to learn, and requires no fancy (or expensive!) packages to start using it.
All you need is something to type with, such as Windows Notepad, and a lot of time and patience.
HTML works on a ‘tag’ system, where each tag effects the content placed within that tag;
<TAG>What the tag effects</TAG>.
CSS(Cascading Style Sheets)

→CSS is a relatively new language, designed to expand upon the limited style properties of
HTML.
→Easy to learn and implement, CSS is an excellent way to control the style of your site, such as
text styles like size, color, and font.
→CSS may also be placed inside the HTML page or in separate files.

Server-side programs

Throughout this course, we have been creating HTML with a text editor and saving .html files.
When these are put on a web server, they are then sent as-is to web browsers. In this case, the job
of the web server is very simple: find the file and send it out.

We have been able to modify the HTML page with code we have written, but that was all
JavaScript code that runs in the web browser. There was never any change in the HTML sent
from the server to the browser.

But if you think about many web sites you visit, this method of creating web pages can't be the
whole story. On Facebook, your news feed changes each time you load it: nobody is sitting there
typing HTML to update it for you. When you search on Google, you might be searching for
something nobody has ever searched for before, so there’s no way the result can be pre-prepared.

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For these sites (and many others), the HTML that is sent from the server to your browser must be
generated when you request it. There is a program on the web server that can look at your
request (what you searched for, or who you are logged in as, or where you are requesting from,
or any other condition) and create an HTML page specifically for that request.
Web pages that come from .html files on the server are called static web pages. Web pages that
are created as they are requested are called dynamic web pages.
Writing programs to create dynamic pages is server-side programming since the programs run
on the web server. The programming we have been doing in JavaScript, where the programs run
in the user's web browser, is called client-side programming.

We have only made static web pages in this course. That has given us a good chance to explore
the basic ideas of the web, and given us a place to put JavaScript code to learn about (client-side)
programming and do some interaction with the user.

Creating dynamic web pages requires a few more things that we won't be doing in detail here.

First, the web server needs to be configured to actually run a program to generate a response
(instead of just finding a file on disk). This is often the biggest barrier to exploring server-side
programming: you need a web server and need to set it up appropriately. This isn't terribly
difficult or expensive, but it can be a challenge for beginners.

Second, you need to be able to write programs that generate the HTTP response for the user.
This generally means creating HTML with your code. Exactly how that is done depends on the
page you need to create: it will probably involve reading information from a database, or
collecting information from some other source.

Socket Programming
Sockets allow communication between two different processes on the same or different
machines. To be more precise, it's a way to talk to other computers using standard Unix file
descriptors. In Unix, every I/O action is done by writing or reading a file descriptor. A file
descriptor is just an integer associated with an open file and it can be a network connection, a
text file, a terminal, or something else.

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To a programmer, a socket looks and behaves much like a low-level file descriptor. This is
because commands such as read() and write() work with sockets in the same way they do with
files and pipes.

Sockets were first introduced in 2.1BSD and subsequently refined into their current form with
4.2BSD. The sockets feature is now available with most current UNIX system releases.

Where is Socket Used?

A Unix Socket is used in a client-server application framework. A server is a process that

performs some functions on request from a client. Most of the application-level protocols like
FTP, SMTP, and POP3 make use of sockets to establish connection between client and server
and then for exchanging data.

Socket Types

There are four types of sockets available to the users. The first two are most commonly used
and the last two are rarely used.
Processes are presumed to communicate only between sockets of the same type but there is no
restriction that prevents communication between sockets of different types.
• Stream Sockets − Delivery in a networked environment is guaranteed. If you send
through the stream socket three items "A, B, C", they will arrive in the same order − "A,
B, C". These sockets use TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) for data transmission. If
delivery is impossible, the sender receives an error indicator. Data records do not have
any boundaries.

• Datagram Sockets − Delivery in a networked environment is not guaranteed. They're

connectionless because you don't need to have an open connection as in Stream Sockets
− you build a packet with the destination information and send it out. They use UDP
(User Datagram Protocol).

• Raw Sockets − These provide users access to the underlying communication protocols,
which support socket abstractions. These sockets are normally datagram oriented,
though their exact characteristics are dependent on the interface provided by the

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 protocol. Raw sockets are not intended for the general user; they have been provided
mainly for those interested in developing new communication protocols, or for gaining
access to some of the more cryptic facilities of an existing protocol.

• Sequenced Packet Sockets − They are similar to a stream socket, with the exception
that record boundaries are preserved. This interface is provided only as a part of the
Network Systems (NS) socket abstraction, and is very important in most serious NS
applications. Sequenced-packet sockets allow the user to manipulate the Sequence
Packet Protocol (SPP) or Internet Datagram Protocol (IDP) headers on a packet or a
group of packets, either by writing a prototype header along with whatever data is to be
sent, or by specifying a default header to be used with all outgoing data, and allows the
user to receive the headers on incoming packets.

Socket programming is a way of connecting two nodes on a network to communicate with each
other. One socket (node) listens on a particular port at an IP, while other socket reaches out to
the other to form a connection. Server forms the listener socket while client reaches out to the
server.

A socket is a communications connection point (endpoint) that you can name and address in a
network. Socket programming shows how to use socket APIs to establish communication links
between remote and local processes.

The processes that use a socket can reside on the same system or different systems on different
networks. Sockets are useful for both stand-alone and network applications. Sockets allow you to
exchange information between processes on the same machine or across a network, distribute
work to the most efficient machine, and they easily allow access to centralized data. Socket
application program interfaces (APIs) are the network standard for TCP/IP. A wide range of
operating systems support socket APIs. IBM® i sockets support multiple transport and
networking protocols. Socket system functions and the socket network functions are threadsafe.

Programmers who use Integrated Language Environment® (ILE) C can refer to this topic
collection to develop socket applications. You can also code to the sockets API from other ILE
languages, such as RPG.

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 Server sockets
TCP server-socket programming is almost as simple as client socket programming. A single
class (ServerSocket) is used to create and manage TCP client socket connections.
The ServerSocket binds to a port and waits for new TCP client connections. When a new TCP
client connection is received, an instance of the Socket class is created by
the ServerSocket instance and used to communicate with the remote client. All of the same
techniques described in the previous section can be used with this newly created Socket instance.

The ServerSocket class provides several constructors and methods useful for binding a TCP
server socket to a local IP address and port. These constructors are used to define the Ideal IP
addresses, the local port, and the connection backlog parameters to be used. The remaining
methods are used to receive new TCP connections, fine-tune various aspects of newly created
Socket instances, determine the binding state, and for closing of the socket.

Relatively few of the constructors and methods are needed to implement basic TCP server-socket
functionality (see Example 5.5). In this example, the LineNumberReader class is used to read the
TCP client request line-by-line. It is important to note that this TCP server is single-threaded and
will close or exit upon receiving and sending one string.

Sockets are commonly used for client and server interaction. Typical system configuration places
the server on one machine, with the clients on other machines. The clients connect to the server,
exchange information, and then disconnect.

A socket has a typical flow of events. In a connection-oriented client-to-server model, the socket
on the server process waits for requests from a client. To do this, the server first establishes
(binds) an address that clients can use to find the server. When the address is established, the
server waits for clients to request a service. The client-to-server data exchange takes place when
a client connects to the server through a socket. The server performs the client's request and
sends the reply back to the client.

The following figure shows the typical flow of events (and the sequence of issued APIs) for a
connection-oriented socket session. An explanation of each event follows the figure.

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 Figure 6. 1 Client server communication

This is a typical flow of events for a connection-oriented socket:

1. The socket() API creates an endpoint for communications and returns a socket descriptor
that represents the endpoint.
2. When an application has a socket descriptor, it can bind a unique name to the socket.
Servers must bind a name to be accessible from the network.
3. The listen() API indicates a willingness to accept client connection requests. When
a listen() API is issued for a socket, that socket cannot actively initiate connection
requests. The listen() API is issued after a socket is allocated with a socket() API and
the bind() API binds a name to the socket. A listen() API must be issued before
an accept() API is issued.
4. The client application uses a connect() API on a stream socket to establish a connection
to the server.
5. The server application uses the accept() API to accept a client connection request. The
server must issue the bind() and listen() APIs successfully before it can issue
an accept() API.

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 6. When a connection is established between stream sockets (between client and server),
you can use any of the socket API data transfer APIs. Clients and servers have many data
transfer APIs from which to choose, such as send(), recv(), read(), write(), and others.
7. When a server or client wants to stop operations, it issues a close() API to release any
system resources acquired by the socket.

Multithreading Concepts

Multithreading is the ability of a program or an operating system process to manage its use by
more than one user at a time and to even manage multiple requests by the same user without
having to have multiple copies of the programming running in the computer. Each user request
for a program or system service (and here a user can also be another program) is kept track of as
a thread with a separate identity. As programs work on behalf of the initial request for that thread
and are interrupted by other requests, the status of work on behalf of that thread is kept track of
until the work is completed.

Multithreading is a CPU (central processing unit) feature that allows two or more instruction
threads to execute independently while sharing the same process resources. A thread is a self-
contained sequence of instructions that can execute in parallel with other threads that are part of
the same root process.

Multithreading allows multiple concurrent tasks can be performed within a single process. When
data scientists are training machine learning algorithms, a multithreaded approach to
programming can improve speed when compared to traditional parallel
multiprocessing programs.

Even though it’s faster for an operating system (OS) to switch between threads for an active CPU
task than it is to switch between different processes, multithreading requires careful
programming in order to avoid conflicts caused by race conditions and deadlocks.
To prevent race conditions and deadlocks, programmers use locks that prevent multiple threads
from modifying the value of the same variable at the same time.
In programming, a thread maintains a list of information relevant to its execution, including the
priority schedule, exception handlers, a set of CPU registers, and stack state in the address space
of its hosting process. Threading can be useful in a single-processor system because it allows the
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primary execution thread to be responsive to user input while supporting threads execute long-
running tasks in the background that do not require user intervention.

When thinking about how multithreading is done, it's important to separate the two concepts of
parallel and concurrent processing.
Parallel multiprocessing means the system is actually handling more than one thread at a given
time. Concurrent processing means that only one thread will be handled at a time, but the system
will create efficiencies by moving quickly between two or more threads.
Another important thing to note is that for practical purposes, computer systems set up for human
users can have parallel or concurrent systems, with the same end result – the process looks
parallel to the user because the computer is working so quickly in terms of microseconds.
The evolution of multicore systems means that there is more parallelism, which alleviates the
need for efficient concurrent processing. The development of faster and more powerful
microchips and processors on this end of the expansion of Moore's law is important to this type
of hardware design and engineering in general.
In addition, much of the parallel or concurrent processing is made available according to the
vagaries of the operating system. So in effect, to the human user, either parallel or concurrent
process, or processes that are mixed, are all experienced as parallelism in real-time.

Types of Multithreading

Different types of multithreading apply to various versions of operating systems and related
controls that have evolved in computing: for example, in pre-emptive multithreading, the context
switch is controlled by the operating system. Then there’s cooperative multithreading, in which
context switching is controlled by the thread. This could lead to problems, such as deadlocks if a
thread is blocked waiting for a resource to become free.
Many other types of models for multithreading also apply, for example, coarse-grained,
interleaved and simultaneous multithreading models will determine how the threads are
coordinated and processed. Other options for multithreading include many to many, many to one
and one to one models. Some models will use concepts like equal time slices to try to portion out
execution among threads. The type of multithreading depends on the system itself, its philosophy
and its build, and how the engineers planned multithreading functionality within it.

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In the active/passive system model, one thread remains responsive to a user, and another thread
works on longer-term tasks in the background. This model is useful for promoting a system that
looks parallel from a user viewpoint, which brings us to a major point in evaluating processes
like micro threading from both ends: from the perspective of the engineer, and the perspective of
the end-user.

Review Questions for chapter 6

What is server computer means?

What is client server communication?
What is socket programming?
Discus on socket server concepts?
What is Multithreading means?

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 CHAPTER SEVEN
DATA SECURITY AND INTEGRITY

Fundamentals of network Security

Network Security deals with all aspects related to the protection of the sensitive information
assets existing on the network. It covers various mechanisms developed to provide fundamental
security services for data communication. This tutorial introduces you to several types of
network vulnerabilities and attacks followed by the description of security measures employed
against them. It describes the functioning of most common security protocols employed at
different networking layers right from application to data link layer. After going through this
tutorial, you will find yourself at an intermediate level of knowledge regarding network security.
Network security is not only concerned about the security of the computers at each end of the
communication chain; however, it aims to ensure that the entire network is secure. Network
security entails protecting the usability, reliability, integrity, and safety of network and data.
Effective network security defeats a variety of threats from entering or spreading on a network.
The primary goals of network security are Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

Activity 7.1
Why we need to secure our network communication?
Discuss some techniques which help to the network?
Do you know about cyber security? Discuss with your classmates?

Goals of Network Security

As discussed in earlier sections, there exists large number of vulnerabilities in the network.
Thus, during transmission, data is highly vulnerable to attacks. An attacker can target the
communication channel, obtain the data, and read the same or re-insert a false message to
achieve his nefarious aims.

Network security is not only concerned about the security of the computers at each end of the
communication chain; however, it aims to ensure that the entire network is secure.

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Network security entails protecting the usability, reliability, integrity, and safety of network and
data. Effective network security defeats a variety of threats from entering or spreading on a
network.

The primary goals of network security are Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. These
three pillars of Network Security are often represented as CIA triangle.

• Confidentiality − The function of confidentiality is to protect precious business data

from unauthorized persons. Confidentiality part of network security makes sure that the
data is available only to the intended and authorized persons.

• Integrity − This goal means maintaining and assuring the accuracy and consistency of
data. The function of integrity is to make sure that the data is reliable and is not changed
by unauthorized persons.

• Availability − The function of availability in Network Security is to make sure that the
data, network resources/services are continuously available to the legitimate users,
whenever they require it.

Achieving Network Security

Ensuring network security may appear to be very simple. The goals to be achieved seem to be
straightforward. But in reality, the mechanisms used to achieve these goals are highly complex,
and understanding them involves sound reasoning.

International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in its recommendation on security

architecture X.800, has defined certain mechanisms to bring the standardization in methods to
achieve network security. Some of these mechanisms are −

• En-cipherment − This mechanism provides data confidentiality services by

transforming data into not-readable forms for the unauthorized persons. This mechanism
uses encryption-decryption algorithm with secret keys.

• Digital signatures − This mechanism is the electronic equivalent of ordinary signatures

in electronic data. It provides authenticity of the data.

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 • Access control − This mechanism is used to provide access control services. These
mechanisms may use the identification and authentication of an entity to determine and
enforce the access rights of the entity.

Having developed and identified various security mechanisms for achieving network security, it
is essential to decide where to apply them; both physically (at what location) and logically (at
what layer of an architecture such as TCP/IP).

Security Mechanisms at Networking Layers

Several security mechanisms have been developed in such a way that they can be developed at a
specific layer of the OSI network layer model.

• Security at Application Layer − Security measures used at this layer are application
specific. Different types of application would need separate security measures. In order
to ensure application layer security, the applications need to be modified.

It is considered that designing a cryptographically sound application protocol is very

difficult and implementing it properly is even more challenging. Hence, application
layer security mechanisms for protecting network communications are preferred to be
only standards-based solutions that have been in use for some time.

An example of application layer security protocol is Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail

Extensions (S/MIME), which is commonly used to encrypt e-mail messages. DNSSEC
is another protocol at this layer used for secure exchange of DNS query messages.

• Security at Transport Layer − Security measures at this layer can be used to protect
the data in a single communication session between two hosts. The most common use
for transport layer security protocols is protecting the HTTP and FTP session traffic.
The Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) are the most
common protocols used for this purpose.

• Network Layer − Security measures at this layer can be applied to all applications; thus,
they are not application-specific. All network communications between two hosts or
networks can be protected at this layer without modifying any application. In some
environments, network layer security protocol such as Internet Protocol Security (IPsec)
provides a much better solution than transport or application layer controls because of

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 the difficulties in adding controls to individual applications. However, security protocols
at this layer provide less communication flexibility that may be required by some
applications.

Incidentally, a security mechanism designed to operate at a higher layer cannot provide

protection for data at lower layers, because the lower layers perform functions of which the
higher layers are not aware. Hence, it may be necessary to deploy multiple security mechanisms
for enhancing the network security.

In the following chapters of the tutorial, we will discuss the security mechanisms employed at
different layers of OSI networking architecture for achieving network security.

Cryptography

Human being from ages had two inherent needs − (a) to communicate and share information
and (b) to communicate selectively. These two needs gave rise to the art of coding the messages
in such a way that only the intended people could have access to the information. Unauthorized
people could not extract any information, even if the scrambled messages fell in their hand.

The art and science of concealing the messages to introduce secrecy in information security is
recognized as cryptography.

The word ‘cryptography’ was coined by combining two Greek words, ‘Krypto’ meaning hidden
and ‘graphene’ meaning writing.

History of Cryptography

The art of cryptography is considered to be born along with the art of writing. As civilizations
evolved, human beings got organized in tribes, groups, and kingdoms. This led to the
emergence of ideas such as power, battles, supremacy, and politics. These ideas further fueled
the natural need of people to communicate secretly with selective recipient which in turn
ensured the continuous evolution of cryptography as well.

The roots of cryptography are found in Roman and Egyptian civilizations.

Context of Cryptography

Cryptology, the study of cryptosystems, can be subdivided into two branches −

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 • Cryptography
• Cryptanalysis

Figure 7. 1 Cryptology branches

What is Cryptography?

Cryptography is the art and science of making a cryptosystem that is capable of providing
information security.

Cryptography deals with the actual securing of digital data. It refers to the design of
mechanisms based on mathematical algorithms that provide fundamental information security
services. You can think of cryptography as the establishment of a large toolkit containing
different techniques in security applications.

What is Cryptanalysis?

The art and science of breaking the cipher text is known as cryptanalysis.
Cryptanalysis is the sister branch of cryptography and they both co-exist. The cryptographic
process results in the cipher text for transmission or storage. It involves the study of
cryptographic mechanism with the intention to break them. Cryptanalysis is also used during
the design of the new cryptographic techniques to test their security strengths.

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Security Services of Cryptography
The primary objective of using cryptography is to provide the following four fundamental
information security services. Let us now see the possible goals intended to be fulfilled by
cryptography.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is the fundamental security service provided by cryptography. It is a security

service that keeps the information from an unauthorized person. It is sometimes referred to
as privacy or secrecy.

Confidentiality can be achieved through numerous means starting from physical securing to the
use of mathematical algorithms for data encryption.

Data Integrity

It is security service that deals with identifying any alteration to the data. The data may get
modified by an unauthorized entity intentionally or accidently. Integrity service confirms that
whether data is intact or not since it was last created, transmitted, or stored by an authorized
user.

Data integrity cannot prevent the alteration of data, but provides a means for detecting whether
data has been manipulated in an unauthorized manner.

Authentication

Authentication provides the identification of the originator. It confirms to the receiver that the
data received has been sent only by an identified and verified sender.

Authentication service has two variants −

• Message authentication identifies the originator of the message without any regard
router or system that has sent the message.

• Entity authentication is assurance that data has been received from a specific entity, say
a particular website.

Apart from the originator, authentication may also provide assurance about other parameters
related to data such as the date and time of creation/transmission.

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Non-repudiation

It is a security service that ensures that an entity cannot refuse the ownership of a previous
commitment or an action. It is an assurance that the original creator of the data cannot deny the
creation or transmission of the said data to a recipient or third party.

Non-repudiation is a property that is most desirable in situations where there are chances of a
dispute over the exchange of data. For example, once an order is placed electronically, a
purchaser cannot deny the purchase order, if non-repudiation service was enabled in this
transaction.

Cryptography Primitives

Cryptography primitives are nothing but the tools and techniques in Cryptography that can be
selectively used to provide a set of desired security services −
• Encryption
• Hash functions
• Message Authentication codes (MAC)
• Digital Signatures

The following table shows the primitives that can achieve a particular security service on their
own.

Table 7.1: Security services of cryptography

A cryptosystem is an implementation of cryptographic techniques and their accompanying

infrastructure to provide information security services. A cryptosystem is also referred to as
a cipher system.

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Let us discuss a simple model of a cryptosystem that provides confidentiality to the information
being transmitted. This basic model is depicted in the illustration below −

Figure 7. 2 Simple model of cryptography

The illustration shows a sender who wants to transfer some sensitive data to a receiver in such a
way that any party intercepting or eavesdropping on the communication channel cannot extract
the data.

The objective of this simple cryptosystem is that at the end of the process, only the sender and
the receiver will know the plaintext.

Components of a Cryptosystem
The various components of a basic cryptosystem are as follows −

• Plaintext. It is the data to be protected during transmission.

• Encryption Algorithm. It is a mathematical process that produces a ciphertext for any

given plaintext and encryption key. It is a cryptographic algorithm that takes plaintext
and an encryption key as input and produces a ciphertext.

• Ciphertext. It is the scrambled version of the plaintext produced by the encryption

algorithm using a specific the encryption key. The ciphertext is not guarded. It flows on
public channel. It can be intercepted or compromised by anyone who has access to the
communication channel.

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 • Decryption Algorithm, It is a mathematical process, that produces a unique plaintext for
any given ciphertext and decryption key. It is a cryptographic algorithm that takes a
ciphertext and a decryption key as input, and outputs a plaintext. The decryption
algorithm essentially reverses the encryption algorithm and is thus closely related to it.

• Encryption Key. It is a value that is known to the sender. The sender inputs the
encryption key into the encryption algorithm along with the plaintext in order to
compute the ciphertext.

• Decryption Key. It is a value that is known to the receiver. The decryption key is related
to the encryption key, but is not always identical to it. The receiver inputs the decryption
key into the decryption algorithm along with the ciphertext in order to compute the
plaintext.

For a given cryptosystem, a collection of all possible decryption keys is called a key space.

An interceptor (an attacker) is an unauthorized entity who attempts to determine the plaintext.
He can see the ciphertext and may know the decryption algorithm. He, however, must never
know the decryption key.

Types of Cryptosystems

Fundamentally, there are two types of cryptosystems based on the manner in which encryption-
decryption is carried out in the system −
• Symmetric Key Encryption
• Asymmetric Key Encryption

The main difference between these cryptosystems is the relationship between the encryption and
the decryption key. Logically, in any cryptosystem, both the keys are closely associated. It is
practically impossible to decrypt the ciphertext with the key that is unrelated to the encryption
key.

Symmetric Key Encryption

The encryption process where same keys are used for encrypting and decrypting the information
is known as Symmetric Key Encryption.

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The study of symmetric cryptosystems is referred to as symmetric cryptography. Symmetric
cryptosystems are also sometimes referred to as secret key cryptosystems.

A few well-known examples of symmetric key encryption methods are − Digital Encryption
Standard (DES), Triple-DES (3DES), IDEA, and BLOWFISH.

Figure 7. 3 Symmetric key encryption

Prior to 1970, all cryptosystems employed symmetric key encryption. Even today, its relevance
is very high and it is being used extensively in many cryptosystems. It is very unlikely that this
encryption will fade away, as it has certain advantages over asymmetric key encryption.

The salient features of cryptosystem based on symmetric key encryption are −

• Persons using symmetric key encryption must share a common key prior to exchange of
information.

• Keys are recommended to be changed regularly to prevent any attack on the system.

• A robust mechanism needs to exist to exchange the key between the communicating
parties. As keys are required to be changed regularly, this mechanism becomes
expensive and cumbersome.

• In a group of n people, to enable two-party communication between any two persons, the
number of keys required for group is n × (n – 1)/2.

• Length of Key (number of bits) in this encryption is smaller and hence, process of
encryption-decryption is faster than asymmetric key encryption.

• Processing power of computer system required to run symmetric algorithm is less.

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Challenge of Symmetric Key Cryptosystem
There are two restrictive challenges of employing symmetric key cryptography.

• Key establishment − before any communication, both the sender and the receiver need
to agree on a secret symmetric key. It requires a secure key establishment mechanism in
place.

• Trust Issue − since the sender and the receiver use the same symmetric key, there is an
implicit requirement that the sender and the receiver ‘trust’ each other. For example, it
may happen that the receiver has lost the key to an attacker and the sender is not
informed.

These two challenges are highly restraining for modern day communication. Today, people
need to exchange information with non-familiar and non-trusted parties. For example, a
communication between online seller and customer. These limitations of symmetric key
encryption gave rise to asymmetric key encryption schemes.

Asymmetric Key Encryption

The encryption process where different keys are used for encrypting and decrypting the
information is known as Asymmetric Key Encryption. Though the keys are different, they are
mathematically related and hence, retrieving the plaintext by decrypting ciphertext is feasible.
The process is depicted in the following illustration −

Figure 7. 4 Asymmetric key encryption

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Asymmetric Key Encryption was invented in the 20th century to come over the necessity of pre-
shared secret key between communicating persons. The salient features of this encryption
scheme are as follows −

• Every user in this system needs to have a pair of dissimilar keys, private key and public
key. These keys are mathematically related − when one key is used for encryption, the
other can decrypt the ciphertext back to the original plaintext.

• It requires to put the public key in public repository and the private key as a well-
guarded secret. Hence, this scheme of encryption is also called Public Key Encryption.

• Though public and private keys of the user are related, it is computationally not feasible
to find one from another. This is a strength of this scheme.

• When Host1 needs to send data to Host2, he obtains the public key of Host2 from
repository, encrypts the data, and transmits.

• Host2 uses his private key to extract the plaintext.

• Length of Keys (number of bits) in this encryption is large and hence, the process of
encryption-decryption is slower than symmetric key encryption.

• Processing power of computer system required to run asymmetric algorithm is higher.

Symmetric cryptosystems are a natural concept. In contrast, public-key cryptosystems are quite
difficult to comprehend.

Challenge of Public Key Cryptosystem

Public-key cryptosystems have one significant challenge − the user needs to trust that the public
key that he is using in communications with a person really is the public key of that person and
has not been spoofed by a malicious third party.

This is usually accomplished through a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) consisting a trusted
third party. The third party securely manages and attests to the authenticity of public keys.
When the third party is requested to provide the public key for any communicating person X,
they are trusted to provide the correct public key.

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The third party satisfies itself about user identity by the process of attestation, notarization, or
some other process − that X is the one and only, or globally unique, X. The most common
method of making the verified public keys available is to embed them in a certificate which is
digitally signed by the trusted third party.
Relation between Encryption Schemes
A summary of basic key properties of two types of cryptosystems is given below −

Symmetric Cryptosystems Public Key Cryptosystems

Relation between Keys Same Different, but mathematically related

Encryption Key Symmetric Public

Decryption Key Symmetric Private

Table 7.2: Summary of basic key cryptosystems

Due to the advantages and disadvantage of both the systems, symmetric key and public-key
cryptosystems are often used together in the practical information security systems.

Private Key:
In Private key, the same key (secret key) is used for encryption and decryption. In this key is
symmetric because the only key is copy or share by another party to decrypt the cipher text. It
is faster than the public key cryptography.

Public Key:
In Public key, two keys are used one key is used for encryption and another key is used for
decryption. One key (public key) is used for encrypt the plain text to convert it into cipher text
and another key (private key) is used by receiver to decrypt the cipher text to read the message.
Now, we see the difference between them:
[Link] Private Key Public Key

Private key is faster than public

1. key. It is slower than private key.

In this, the same key (secret key) In public key cryptography, two keys
2. and algorithm is used to encrypt are used, one key is used for encryption

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 and decrypt the message. and while the other is used for
decryption.

In private key cryptography, the In public key cryptography, one of the

3. key is kept as a secret. two keys is kept as a secret.

Private key
is Symmetrical because there is Public key is Asymmetrical because
only one key that is called secret there are two types of key: private and
4. key. public key.

In this cryptography, sender and In this cryptography, sender and

receiver need to share the same receiver does not need to share the same
5. key. key.

In this cryptography, the key is In this cryptography, public key can be

6. private. public and private key is private.

Table 7.3: difference between public key and private key

Firewalls
A firewall is a network security device that monitors incoming and outgoing network traffic and
permits or blocks data packets based on a set of security rules. Its purpose is to establish a
barrier between your internal network and incoming traffic from external sources (such as the
internet) in order to block malicious traffic like viruses and hackers.

Firewalls carefully analyze incoming traffic based on pre-established rules and filter traffic
coming from unsecured or suspicious sources to prevent attacks. Firewalls guard traffic at a
computer’s entry point, called ports, which is where information is exchanged with external
devices. For example, “Source address [Link] is allowed to reach destination [Link] over
port 22."
Think of IP addresses as houses, and port numbers as rooms within the house. Only trusted
people (source addresses) are allowed to enter the house (destination address) at all—then it’s
further filtered so that people within the house are only allowed to access certain rooms
(destination ports), depending on if they're the owner, a child, or a guest. The owner is allowed to

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any room (any port), while children and guests are allowed into a certain set of rooms (specific
ports).
Virtual Private Network

VPN stands for "Virtual Private Network" and describes the opportunity to establish a
protected network connection when using public networks. VPNs encrypt your internet traffic
and disguise your online identity. This makes it more difficult for third parties to track your
activities online and steal data. The encryption takes place in real time.

Activity 7.2

What do you know about Virtual private network?

Discuss with your classmate how VPN works?
List some very popular VPN servers?

How does a VPN work?

A VPN hides your IP address by letting the network redirect it through a specially configured
remote server run by a VPN host. This means that if you surf online with a VPN, the VPN server
becomes the source of your data. This means your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and other third
parties cannot see which websites you visit or what data you send and receive online. A VPN
works like a filter that turns all your data into "gibberish". Even if someone were to get their
hands on your data, it would be useless.
What are the benefits of a VPN connection?

A VPN connection disguises your data traffic online and protects it from external access.
Unencrypted data can be viewed by anyone who has network access and wants to see it. With a
VPN, hackers and cyber criminals can’t decipher this data.
Secure encryption: To read the data, you need an encryption key. Without one, it would take
millions of years for a computer to decipher the code in the event of a brute force attack . With
the help of a VPN, your online activities are hidden even on public networks.
Disguising your where abouts : VPN servers essentially act as your proxies on the internet.
Because the demographic location data comes from a server in another country, your actual

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location cannot be determined. In addition, most VPN services do not store logs of your
activities. Some providers, on the other hand, record your behavior, but do not pass this
information on to third parties. This means that any potential record of your user behavior
remains permanently hidden.
Access to regional content: Regional web content is not always accessible from everywhere.
Services and websites often contain content that can only be accessed from certain parts of the
world. Standard connections use local servers in the country to determine your location. This
means that you cannot access content at home while traveling, and you cannot access
international content from home. With VPN location spoofing , you can switch to a server to
another country and effectively “change” your location.
Secure data transfer: If you work remotely, you may need to access important files on your
company’s network. For security reasons, this kind of information requires a secure connection.
To gain access to the network, a VPN connection is often required. VPN services connect to
private servers and use encryption methods to reduce the risk of data leakage.

Review Questions for chapter 7

What are network security issues?
Discus on three pillars of network security?
What is cryptography?
What is Digital signature means?
What are Symmetric key and asymmetric key encryption techniques?
What is Public key and private key means?

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References
[1]. Computer Networking. Kurose and Ross. Addison Wesley, latest edition
[2]. CISCO certified network associate study guide, 5th edition
[3]. Data communication and computer networking, fourth edition by Behrouz A. Forouzan

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