CHAPTER 2

FAST PACKET SWITCHING

Fast-Packet Switches

 Packet switching is a mode of data transmission in which

message is broken in to a number of parts which are sent
independently, over what ever route is optimum for each packet,
and reassembled at destination
 Each packet contains a portion (or all for a short message) of the
user’s data plus some control information
 Fast packet switching is generic name for new high speed WAN
and MAN services
 Fast packet switches bypasses some error checking protocols and
leave this responsibility to the receiving end
Fast-Packet Switches

 It is a variant of packet switching that increases the

throughput by eliminating overhead associated with flow
control and error correction functions , which are either
offloaded to upper layer networking protocols or remove
altogether
 ATM and Frame Relay are the two major implementation
of fast packet switching
 Cont..

 One technical aspect of packet-switching networks remains to be

examined: the interface between attached devices and the network.
 We have seen that a circuit-switching network provides a transparent
communications path for attached devices
 However, in the case of packet-switching networks, the attached
stations must organize their data into packets for transmission.
 This requires a certain level of cooperation between the network and
the attached stations.
 This cooperation is embodied in an interface standard.
 The standard used for traditional packet-switching networks is X.25.
 X.25 is an ITU-T standard that specifies an interface between a host
system and a packet-switching network.
Cont..

The functionality of X.25 is specified on three levels:

 Physical level : deals with the physical interface between
an attached station and the link that attaches that station to
the packet-switching node
 Link level: The link level provides for the reliable transfer
of data across the physical link, by transmitting the data as a
sequence of frames
 Packet level: The packet level provides a virtual circuit
service.
 Cont..

The following are key features of the X.25 approach:

 Call control packets, used for setting up and clearing virtual
circuits, are carried on the same channel and same virtual
circuit as data packets.
 Multiplexing of virtual circuits takes place at layer 3.
 Both layer 2 and layer 3 include flow control and error control
mechanisms
FRAME RELAY

 Frame relay is designed to provide a more efficient

transmission scheme than X.25.
 Is designed to eliminate much of the overhead that X.25
imposes on end user systems and on the packet-switching
network
 It puts data in a variable size unit called a frame and leaves
any necessary error correction to endpoints, which speeds
up overall data transmission.
 Cont..

 The key differences between frame relay and a conventional

X.25 packet-switching service are as follows:
1. Call control signaling, which is information needed to set up
and manage a connection, is carried on a separate logical
connection from user data
2. Multiplexing and switching of logical connections takes
place at layer 2 instead of layer 3, eliminating one entire
layer of processing.
3. There is no hop-by-hop flow control and error control. End-
to-end flow control and error control are the responsibility
of a higher layer, if they are employed at all
 Cont..

 Thus, with frame relay, a single user data frame is sent from
source to destination, and an acknowledgment, generated at a
higher layer
 The advantage of frame relay is that we have streamlined the
communications process.
 The protocol functionality required at the user network
interface is reduced, as is the internal network processing.
 As a result, lower delay and higher throughput can be
expected.
 Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)

 ATM, also known as cell relay, takes advantage of the

reliability and fidelity of modern digital facilities to provide
faster packet switching into SDH frame, STM-1, or into a
SONET frame
 ATM is in some ways similar to packet switching:
 The transfer of data in discrete chunks
 Allows multiple logical connections to be multiplexed over a
single physical interface but in ATM the information flow on
each logical connection is organized into fixed size packets,
called cells.
Cont..

 ATM is a streamlined protocol with minimal error and

flow control capabilities
 This reduces the overhead of processing ATM cells and
reduces the number of overhead bits required with each
cell, thus enabling ATM to operate at high data rates.
 Further, the use of fixed-size cells simplifies the
processing required at each ATM node, again supporting
the use of ATM at high data rates.
ATM Protocol Architecture
 ATM LOGICAL CONNECTIONS

 Logical connections in ATM are referred to as virtual

channel connections (VCCs).
 VCC is the basic unit of switching in an ATM network.
 A VCC is set up between two end users through the network
and a variable-rate, full-duplex flow of fixed-size cells is
exchanged over the connection.
 VCCs are also used for user-network exchange (control
signaling) and network-network exchange (network
management and routing).
 Cont..

 For ATM, a second sub layer of processing has been

introduced that deals with the concept of virtual path.
 A virtual path connection (VPC) is a bundle of VCCs that
have the same endpoints.
 Thus, all of the cells flowing over all of the VCCs in a single
VPC are switched together.
 ATM CELLS

 The asynchronous transfer mode makes use of fixed-size cells,

consisting of a 5-octet header and a 48-octet information field
 There are several advantages to the use of
small, fixed-size cells
1. The use of small cells may reduce queuing delay for a high-
priority cell, b/c it waits less if it arrives slightly behind a lower
priority cell that has gained access to a resource
2. It appears that fixed-size cells can be switched more efficiently,
which is important for the very high data rates of ATM
3. With fixed-size cells, it is easier to implement the
switching mechanism in hardware.
Cont..
 TRANSMISSION OF ATM CELLS

 ATM cells may be transmitted at one of several data rates:

622.08 Mbps, 155.52 Mbps, 51.84 Mbps, or 25.6 Mbps.
 We need to specify the transmission structure that will be
used to carry this payload.
 Two approaches are defined :
a cell-based physical layer and
an SDH-based physical layer
 Shared-Memory switches

 Fast packet switch may be of shared-memory switches or shared-

medium switches
 Shared memory switches stores all incoming packets in a common
memory buffer shared by all the switch ports (input/output
connection) , then send them out via the correct port for the
destination node
 It works essentially as an output buffered switch, and therefore
achieves the optimal throughput and delay
 Several commercially available ATM switch based on shared
memory architecture provide a capacity of several tens of Gbs.
Some are: M40 backbone router, ATMS2000
 Shared-Medium Switches

 In a shared medium switch, all packets arriving on input links are

routed to output links over a common high speed medium such as a
parallel bus
 Each of output links is capable of receiving all packets transmitted
to bus
 One of the main advantages of shared medium architecture is the
simplicity with which the multicast function is achieved since a
transmitted packet over the shared medium can be received by all
output links simultaneously
 Thus, the need to send multiple copies is eliminated
 Cont..

 Also, priority among input links can easily be implemented

within the bus arbitration policy
 A shared medium packet switch can provide packet queuing
at the input links, at the output links, or both input and output
links