5.

Ethernet, VLANs, and Data Center

Networking

Mulugeta Libsie mulugeta.libsie@aau.edu.et

Objectives of the Chapter
 We will discuss
 Ethernet: including the different standards
 Virtual LANs: Including why it is needed
 Data Center Networking: Why it is needed and what its
components are
 Devices at the Link and Network Layers: switches and routers

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 5.1 Ethernet

 The most dominant LAN technology today

 Many different Ethernet standards exist
 All use common MAC protocol (CSMA/CD and half duplex,
except 10GbE) and frame format
 Kept up with speed race: 10Mbps, 100Mbps, 1Gbps, 10Gbps
 They use different media: fiber, coaxial cable, etc.
 Originally created in 1976 at Xerox’s Palo Alta Research Center
by Bob Metacalfe and David Boggs to operate at 2.94Mbps (not
a commercial success for Xerox)

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Ethernet (2)

Metcalfe’s Ethernet sketch (a coaxial bus is used to interconnect

nodes) which led to the 10Base5 Ethernet standard

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Ethernet (3)
 An Ethernet frame contains 7 fields
 Preamble: 56 bits of alternating 1s and 0s to alert the
receiving system to the coming frame (it is used to
synchronize receiver & sender clock rates since each may
have different capabilities - 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, or 1 Gbps)
 SFD: Start Field/Frame Delimiter, flag (10101011); last
chance for synchronization
 The preamble and the SFD are added by the physical layer
and are not formally part of the frame
Destination Source Length Data and
Preamble SFD Address Address MTU Padding
CRC

7 bytes 1 byte 6 bytes 6 bytes 2 bytes 4 bytes

 Destination address can be unicast, multicast or broadcast
but source address is always unicast
 Note: the maximum amount of data that a link-layer frame
can carry is called the maximum transmission unit (MTU)
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Ethernet (4)
 CRC is also sometimes called FCS (Frame Check Sequence)
 Minimum and maximum frame lengths are defined (only for the
data)
 Minimum is important for the correct operation of CSMA/CD; the
entire frame should not be sent out before a collision is heard
 Maximum is only historical
 Padding/stuffing is used if the packet size is less than the minimum
packet size

Length
MTU

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Ethernet (5)

a. Traditional Ethernet (IEEE 802.3)

 With a speed of 10Mbps and already outdated
b. Fast Ethernet (IEEE 802.3z)
 The need for a higher data rate resulted in the design of the Fast
Ethernet protocol (100Mbps)
 Basic idea: keep all the old frame formats, interfaces, and
procedural rules, but just reduce the bit time from 100 ns
(10Mbps) to 10 ns (100Mbps)
 A new feature, called autonegotiation, is added to allow
 Incompatible devices to communicate with one another, e.g.,
one with 10Mbps and one with 100Mbps (for backward
compatibility)
 One device to have multiple capabilities
 A station to check a hub’s capabilities
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Ethernet (6)
c. Gigabit Ethernet (IEEE 802.3u)
 The need for an even higher data rate resulted in the design of
the Gigabit Ethernet protocol (1000Mbps)
 Basic idea: make Ethernet go 10 times faster yet remain
backward compatible with all existing Ethernet standards

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Ethernet (7)
d. 10 GbE (IEEE Std 802.3-2008, a consolidated one)
 10Gbps Ethernet (10GBASE-T or 10GbE) was standardized,
promising yet higher Ethernet LAN capacities
 10GbE Ethernet defines only full duplex links which can be
connected by switches (meaning a switch and a node can each
send frames to each other at the same time without
interference); hence no collision (and no Media Access
Protocol) and higher data rate
 Half duplex operation and CSMA/CD do not exist in 10GbE
 40 Gigabit Ethernet (or 40GbE) and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (or
100GbE) are also on the making, mainly used in data centers

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 5.2 Virtual LANs (VLANs)
 Large LAN installations with many stations have some problems
and inconveniences

An Institutional network connecting three departments, two

servers and a router with four switches
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VLANs (2)
 Lack of traffic isolation: May be unnecessary and confidential
messages are broadcasted (broadcast traffic (e.g., frames carrying
ARP and DHCP messages or frames whose destination has not
yet been learned by a self-learning switch) must still traverse the
entire institutional network)
 Inefficient use of switches: If each group were small, say less than
10 people, then a single 96-port switch would likely be large
enough to accommodate everyone, but this single switch would
not provide traffic isolation
 Managing users. If an employee moves between groups, the
physical cabling must be changed to connect the employee to a
different switch; Employees belonging to two groups make the
problem even harder
 Do not facilitate team work
 Do not reflect organizational structure
 Too much load on the network
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VLANs (3)
 The solution is VLAN
 A virtual LAN is a LAN configured by software, not by physical wiring
 The whole idea is to divide a LAN into logical segments called VLANs,
instead of physical segments
 Each VLAN is a work-group in the organization; group membership is
defined by software, not hardware
 Any station can be logically moved to another VLAN
 All members belonging to a VLAN can receive broadcast messages
sent to that particular VLAN
 IEEE 802.1Q is the networking standard that supports VLANs on an
Ethernet network

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VLANs (4)

 The above figure shows a single switch with 16 ports

 Ports 2 to 8 belong to the EE VLAN, while ports 9 to 15 belong
to the CS VLAN (ports 1 and 16 are unassigned)
 Read about VLAN trunking to interconnect VLANs
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 5.3 Data Center Networking
 The need arises as a result of Cloud Computing and other
resource demanding applications
 Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves
delivering hosted services over the Internet
 It is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access
to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g.,
networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can
be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management
effort or service provider interaction
 Service models: Software as a Service - SaaS; Platform as a
Service – PaaS; Infrastructure as a Service - IaaS
 Other resource demanding applications: Web e-mail (Google,
Yahoo), Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter), e-commerce
(Amazon), Search (Google, Microsoft), Multimedia Content
Providers (Netflix, YouTube)
 These services require massive data centers, housing hundreds
of thousands of hosts working concurrently
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Data Center Networking (2)
 A data center has its own data center network that interconnects its
hosts with each other (using NAT addresses) and interconnects the
data center with the Internet (through border routers)
 For example, Google has 50-100 data centers, including about 15
large centers, each data center with more than 100,000 servers
 One study shows that the cost of a large data center is huge,
exceeding $12 million per month for a 100,000 host data center
 Of these costs, about 45% can be attributed to the hosts themselves
(which need to be replaced every 3–4 years); 25% to infrastructure,
including transformers, uninterruptable power supplies (UPS)
systems, generators for long-term outages, and cooling systems;
15% for electric utility costs for the power draw; and 15% for
networking, including network gear (switches, routers and load
balancers), external links, and transit traffic costs
 While networking is not the largest cost, networking innovation is the
key to reducing overall cost and maximizing performance
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Data Center Networking (3)
 A data center usually has a hierarchical topology for scalability
Possibly more than one
for scalability

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Data Center Networking (4)
 Data Center Network Components
 The hosts in data centers are called blades and each includes
CPU, memory, and disk storage
 The hosts are stacked in racks, with each rack typically having
20 to 40 blades
 At the top of each rack there is a switch, named the Top of Rack
(TOR) switch, that interconnects the hosts in the rack with each
other and with other switches in the data center
 Each host in the rack has a NIC that connects to its TOR switch,
and each TOR switch has additional ports that can be connected
to other switches; Today hosts typically have 40 Gbps Ethernet
connections to their TOR switches
 Each host is assigned its own data-center-internal IP address
 The data center network supports two types of traffic: traffic
flowing between external clients and internal hosts (through
boarder routers) and traffic flowing between internal hosts
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Data Center Networking (5)
 To handle flows between external clients and internal hosts, the
data center network includes one or more border routers,
connecting the data center network to the public Internet
 Load Balancing
 A load balancer distributes external requests to the hosts,
balancing the load across the hosts
 A large data center will often have several load balancers, each
one devoted to a set of specific cloud applications
 Such a load balancer is sometimes referred to as a “layer-4
switch” since it makes decisions based on the destination port
number (layer 4) as well as destination IP address in the packet
 When a host finishes processing the request, it sends its
response back to the load balancer, which in turn relays the
response back to the external client
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Data Center Networking (6)

 The load balancer also provides a NAT-like function, translating

the public external IP address to the internal IP address of the
appropriate host, and then translating back for packets traveling
in the reverse direction back to the clients
 This prevents clients from contacting hosts directly, which has
the security benefit of hiding the internal network structure and
preventing clients from directly interacting with the hosts

 Data center networking is currently a hot area of research and

most of the currently implemented technologies are proprietary

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 5.4 Devices at the Link and Network Layers
 Switch
 Operates at the link layer to connect devices in a LAN segment
 Stores and forwards Ethernet frames, i.e., it buffers packets
 Examines incoming frame’s MAC address, selectively forwards
frame to one or more outgoing links when frame is to be
forwarded on segment
 It has a filtering capability to decide whether a frame has to be
forwarded or dropped using a switch table (that maps addresses
to ports)
 Because a switch isolates one link from another, the different
links in the LAN can operate at different speeds and can run
over different media
 Transparent
 Hosts are unaware of the presence of switches
 Plug-and-play, self-learning
 Switches do not need to be configured
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Devices at the Link and Network Layers (2)
 A switch allows multiple simultaneous transmissions
 Hosts have a dedicated, direct connection to a switch
 Switching: A-to-D and B-to-E simultaneously, without
collisions
A
 Switch Table
 How does a switch know that D is F B
reachable via interface 4, E is
reachable via interface 5? 1 2
 Each switch has a switch table 6 3
 Each entry has: MAC address of 5 4
host, interface to reach host, TTL C
(Aging time)
 How are entries created and E D
maintained in switch table? Switch with six interfaces
 Something like a routing protocol? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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Devices at the Link and Network Layers (3)
 A switch is self-learning: It learns Source: A
which hosts can be reached Dest: D
through which interfaces A AD
 When a frame is received, a switch
“learns” the location of the sender: F B
incoming LAN segment
 Records sender’s location in a 6
1 2
3
switch table
5 4
 Aging time: the switch deletes an
address in the table if no frames C
are received with that address after
some period of time E D
MAC Address Interface TTL Switch Table
A 1 9:02 (initially empty)
 If aging time is, say, 60 minutes and if no frames arrive between
9:02 and 10:02, then the above entry will be deleted at 10:02
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Devices at the Link and Network Layers (4)
Frame Filtering/Forwarding
 Filtering is the switch function that determines whether a frame
should be forwarded to some interface or should just be dropped

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Devices at the Link and Network Layers (5)
 Forwarding is the switch function that determines the interfaces
to which a frame should be directed, and then moves the frame
to those interfaces
When a frame is received:
1. Record link associated with the sending host
2. Index switch table using destination MAC address
3. if (entry found for destination)
{
if (destination is on segment from which frame arrived)
drop the frame (it is on the same LAN and the switch
on that LAN would have already forwarded it to the
destination)
else forward the frame on the interface indicated
} forward on all interfaces except the interface
on which the frame arrived
else flood
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Devices at the Link and Network Layers (6)

Self-learning/forwarding: example
Source: A
 Frame destination unknown Dest: D
 flood A AD
 Destination A: location known:
 selective send F B
1 2
MAC Address Interface TTL 6
AD 3
A 1 9:04 5 4
D 4 9:05 C
DA
Switch Table E
(initially empty) D

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Devices at the Link and Network Layers (7)
 Interconnecting switches
 Switches can be connected together
S4

S1 S2 S3

A
D G I
B C F
E H

 Q: sending from A to G - how does S1 know to forward frame

destined to F via S4 and S3?
 A: self learning! (works exactly the same as in single-switch
case!)

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Devices at the Link and Network Layers (8)
 Router
 Operates at the network layer to connect different networks
 When a packet arrives, the frame header and trailer are stripped
off and the packet located in the frame’s payload (a packet from
the layer above) field is passed to the routing software. The
software uses the packet header to choose an output line
payload

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Devices at the Link and Network Layers (9)
 Switches vs. Routers
 Both are store-and-forward devices but
 Routers
 Are network layer (or Layer-3) devices
 Examine network layer headers and forward packets
using network-layer (IP) addresses, i.e., they locate
specific networks
 Maintain routing tables, implement routing algorithms
 Switches
 Are link layer (or Layer-2) devices
 Forward packets using MAC addresses, i.e., they locate
specific devices within a network
 Maintain switch tables, implement filtering and learning
algorithms
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Devices at the Link and Network Layers (10)

Packet processing in switches, routers, and hosts

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Devices at the Link and Network Layers (11)
 When does a network use switches, and when should it use
routers?
 Small networks consisting of a few hundred hosts have a few
LAN segments
 Switches suffice for these small networks, as they localize
traffic and increase aggregate throughput without
requiring any configuration of IP addresses
 But larger networks consisting of thousands of hosts typically
include routers within the network (in addition to switches)
 The routers provide a more robust isolation of traffic,
control broadcast storms, and use more “intelligent”
routes among the hosts in the network

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Devices at the Link and Network Layers (12)
 Read about
 Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks [RFC 3031,
RFC 3032]
 Frame-relay and ATM networks which can also be used to
interconnect IP devices, though they represent a slightly
older (but still deployed) technology

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