Chapter One Data Communications Basics

his chapter provides an overview of data communications, an area that is receiving much attention for the past ten years. It aims at familiarizing the reader with terminologies, limitations and capabilities of current data communications systems. A successful computer system may be viewed as an integration of data-processing system and data-communication system. The function of data communication is to extend the processing power to cover wider area and overcome spatial limitation. Upon completion of this chapter, you should be able to: Define telecommunications Define data communications Understand the data communications requirements List the characteristics of cluster and distributed networks List different network topologies Understand the evolution of communications network A distributed system is an integration of data processing, data communication system, a 3-D model.

Data communications and networking concepts Communications

he contents of this Lecture Notes is about Data communications, it is quite natural to define a few frequently used terminologies throughout this book. Communications by definition refers to the transfer of information from one place to another between two individuals using agreed symbols, signs or even human behaviour such as nodding. Below are a few examples involvingcommunication. Talking to your friend over a phone between Kowloon Tong and Shatin. In this example, at least a single telephone exchange with two telephone sets are required. The voice signal will be converted and amplified prior to reaching the called party. In addition, both sides can send/receive voice signals (Formal definition is full-duplex.) Writing a mail to overseas relative. In this example, there is no 100% guarantee that the mail will be correctly received by your relative. The delivery of letter is done by a third party and acknowledge on the receipt of letter is usually not provided to ordinary mail. (Formal definition is simplex.) Lecturing a course. In this example, the exchange of information is face-toface and again is usually a simplex style, unless the student raises question. Voice, Drawing and Image will be used to deliver a lecture to the student. Types of information during communication may include one or a combination of following: Voice through radio or telephone. It was analogue signal and is being replaced by digital signal. Use of digital signals for communication has a lot of advantages: The signal could be reproduced with less distortion. In terms of reception quality, you will find that the voice part of NICAM system is better than the video part seen on the screen during adverse weather. It is because the audio part of TV signal is digitized while the audio part is still analogue and may be affected by the mis-alignment of antennas reception. Video picture seen on TV screen. The information to be carried is continuous images. Digital Data between modem and PC communication port 1 (COM1). In this example, the data transfer is called asynchronous mode (Not synchronous in the way of sending data.) Image received by FAX machine The signal types to be used in communication are summarized into:

Voice or audio, human speech Data, banking record Video Image, desktop scanned bit map Drawing, output of AutoCAD or AutoSketch Multi-media Data Multi-media technology is being developed to cover the above signal types into a single entity. A signle entity means within the network, there is no distinction on the types of signal. All of them are classifed as digital signals with different characteristics. For instance, delay on voice is more sensitive than text data during transmssion. A few more examples regarding the products are given below: Movice = Video + Audio Digital games = Music + video + software Electronic books = text + data + graphics + music + photographs + video Looking at the above classification, it is felt that video dominates the future data communications. Because of the limited bandwidth (data that can be transmitted per unit time), the video signal is needed to be digitised, compressed and stored in mutimedia storage warehouse called server . It is linked by transport networks to allow users to access.

Can you draw a distinction between drawing and image in terms of file size and supporting software packages if required to produce the picture?

The file size of Drawing is less than an image as it uses vector approach. The graphics also use simple geometric setting such as a circle can be represented by the centre and the radius, not the whole circle picture. This, of course, relies on the package to reproduce it.

Communication System
Exchange of information relies on a communication system to convert, amplify and send signal through a common medium. A very simple communication

system may include a sender (originator or caller) and a receiver as shown in Figure . Of course, terminals and communication cables are also required. The description for each item is given in the following table. Term Description Example Message, Sender, Medium and Receiver are the essential components of communication system.

If a system is extended by cascading more communications systems, it is called networked systems. In the above diagram, the receiver can also send the information back to the sender depending on the protocol commonly agreed and the transmission medium. Could you list the consequences if the sender is sending the Simplified Chinese Characters while the receiver interprets as English Words? If the communication medium is air and the signal is contaminated by random noise, how can the receiver identify the error messages being received?

Telecommunications
In case, communication involves the sending of information over a significant distance, it must use telecommunications as an aid. By definition, Telecommunications refers to the transmission of information between distant locations by some electromagnetic means. A typical example is the microwave link currently being used by Hong Kong Electric between Lamma power station and major zone substations on Hong Kong island. The distance in between is over several kilometers and the links use extensive electronic based microwave equipment. Star TV involves Telecommunication by broadcasting the TV pictures through the satellite called AsiaSAT. Assume that you are using a dial link to access the CityUs Citylink, can you list which part involves the use of telecommunications?

A pair of modems used to convert the digital signal from the PC to analogue signal involves Telecommunications by sending/receiving the data through telephone network. The telephone network abbreviated as PSTN (Public

Switching Telephone Network) is currently monopolized by Hong Kong Telecom. It is basically a voice network but can be used with the consent of Hong Kong Telecom to support data through a pair of modems. How far does it take for an analog signal travelling over a voice network?

The speed in the telephone network depends on the speed of electronic. It is roughly half the speed of light that is 1.5x108 km per second. Based on this Figure, can you Figure out it long it takes by a telephone signal from Hong Kong to Tokyo?

Data Communications
Data communications is defined as the interchange and processing encoded information between distant locations using Telecommunications. Encoded information refers to digital information and is nothing just a series of ones and zeros from one point to another.

Data communications is regarded as the collection and distribution of the electronic representation of information which can be text, voice, graphics or image, from and to remote computing facilities. As information can only be carried to the remote site provided that the information carrier supports that particular type of data transmission, information may undergo data conversion processes if the nature of data signal is incompatible with the characteristics of the signal carrier. To illustrate the relationship between Data communications and Telecommunications, we group these two terms together with the aid of computers. You will find that data communication bases on the computer to process the digital information and relies on telecommunication equipment to deliver the information to remote receiver as shown in Figure Data communication is now even used by computer people as a single word datacommunication similar to telecommunication.

Teleprocessing is the combination of telecommunications and data processing. However, it is often used interchangeably with the term data communications.

Why Data Communications?

There are a few reasons behind, below are the most important three reasons. It is beneficial if computers can exchange their data through the common links among them. This not only reduces document flow, but also saves time. Some companies in Hong Kong use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to do business (such as placing order, sending invoice, etc. through the network). By use of data communications, tasks of distributed nature can be processed by distributed computer systems by exchanging data and/or intermediate results among themselves. For example, well known retail shops like Circle K can use Point Of Sale system to keep check the inventory level locally, sales summaries and request can be transmitted to the computer in headquarters for overall turnover. It provides a way to link hardware, software, and data bases among computer systems in different geographical locations and what is more important is that this enhances a company to make better use of its computing resources. For example regional office may send a job, which is too big for its regional computer system to handle, to the headquarters computer system for processing and sending the result back. The data communication is getting booming for the past 10 years due to the powerful capability of computer systems. Below are the trends for minicomputer. Increased computation power. To measure the computation power, Million Instructions Per Second abbreviated as MIPS is used for the same CPU bus size. A 80486 PC is roughly 5 to 6 MIPS. Cheaper mass storage. Nowadays, to use a single 1M bit memory chip in PC is quite common. 25 years ago, a popular ICL mainframe model only had 64K bytes as the main memory. Talking about the disk technology, it shows that the capacity will also increase exponentially with gigabyte capacity available in the near future. Multiple head/multiple platter magnetic technology and compact disk optical technology are both capable of providing cost-effective mass storage with this capacity. Increased data management capabilities. A lot of network management tools to monitor the performance of network and data management tool

like Powerhouse are very common to keep check the performance of data and network. Reduction in cost. You probably find that the price of PC is roughly depreciated by half for about two years. A PC 80486 with 200M harddisk and Super VGA monitor is 8000+ in early 1994, which was 15000+ in early 1992 at Golden Arcade. Now a Pentium Pro costs less than HKD10000. A computer specialist therefore recommended the buyer not to buy the top model on sale in the market, as the buyer will get a similar type two years later at half the price. Increased in performance/cost. It is one of the factors to measure the computers performance in terms of MIPS/cost. Using this factor, IBM mainframe is extremely expensive than a 80486 PC or Prime Computer. Can you draw the distinction amongst data, information and knowledge?

Data refers to pre-processed material and information refers to the processed data.

The use of telecommunication is to extend the computation capability offered by computer. More than 90% of computers are used in business to process the data and produce report, without telecommunication, the service only focus in the office environment. Use of data communication, on the other hand, allows different computers to group together to process the inter-related messages. Up to here, can you clearly define the terms: communications, telecommunications and data communications? Communications: Telecommunications: DataCommunications:

Computer Network
Network by definition refers to a group of interconnected devices communicating with each other. The device could be telephone exchange. If the device is a computer, it is called computer network. So, computer network

is defined as a collection of computer systems that are connected together for the purpose of exchanging and sharing resources. To call it a computer network involves three major components as listed below: Computers. These are definitely required to process and relay messages between two remote parties. It is further classified into clustered and distributed. Clustered (There is only one machine or all the machines are grouped together) Distributed (This is the current trend for computer communications.) To classify whether the system is partially or fully distributed, there are three factors :Is the data distributed amongst the nodes? Is the hardware distributed? Is the operating system used distributed? If the system can satisfy all of them, it is regarded as a fully distributed system. Remote terminals attaching to the network. The terminal can also classified into two types namely: Interactive type such as VT100, IBM 3278. VT means virtual terminal. It relies on software to conFigure the PC to behave like different terminal types such as VT200 or VT100. When you log into the VAX/VMS, you could use show terminal to find out the terminal type that you are using. Batch like RJE (Remote Job Entry) by IBM series. Communication links. The link can be physical link such as telephone wire, satellite channel and telephone wire or logical link formed by software.

A physical wire can be shared by a few users simultaneously, the piece of time that is shared by user is regarded as software link and the physical wire itself is physical link. By use of communication software, a few physical wires could be grouped together to serve two machines is called logical trunk. An X.25 physical path can support up to 4096 logical channels.

Networking Concepts Advantages of computer Networks

There are a lot of advantages by use of networked computers such as: Resource sharing including program, data base, hardware etc. You can now remotely search library catalogue belonging to The University of Hong Kong through UPGC network at City University of Hong Kong. Graceful degradation of system upon component failure. One of computer nodes failure will affect part of the network only.

Cluster Network
A cluster network is a simple communication system with a single host processor or a few grouped processors at the same location. Terminals are connected to the host through telephone wiring. Data and executable files are also centrally located in the processors and are usually shared among users. The library system at City University of Hong Kong is a typical example. Figure is a block diagram showing the relationship between a computing machine and terminals. Explain why computer loading is also shared among users a clustered network.

Distributed networks
The network is characterized by connecting multiple processors geographically distributed within the network as shown in Figure .BITNET, Because It is a Time NETtwork, is a typical example of distributed network and is established to provide information transfer to international academic institutions. BITNET presently links more than 2900 institutional computers over 450 higher educational institutions and research centres in most countries including Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, Europe, United States etc. HARNET, Hong Kong Academic Research Network, is now upgraded with T1 link at the speed of 1.54 M bits per second with Ring configuration instead of Star configuration.

Can you distinguish the difference between Ring and Star network in terms of network topology? The advantages of using distributed network are: Flexibility for future growth and expansion. To add a node to the system is to make a physical connection with appropriate software to the boundary node. Versatile and reliable in terms of system down time The networks reliability can be measured in terms of system down time. That is how many seconds/minutes within a month/year the network is out of service. Cost effective in terms of system growth and maintenance Figure 3 shows the interconnection of a few distributed machines through a wide area network. The computers are interconnected through a common network.

Network Topologies
Network topology refers to the way of grouping/linking the communication nodes to serve particular need. Figure is an older version of HARNET (Hong Kong Academic Research Network) showing the connections with node names amongst the higher educational institutions in Hong Kong. The centre node was HKUs HKUJNT. Can you classify this type of network topology? Ring or Star.

Communication Subnetwork
Arrangement of the computers and the interconnections between them as shown in Figure with appropriate DCE, DTE and network boundary. Each computer in a network is called a node. The connection is known as an arc, path or link. Factors that should be considered in defining the network topology include: Reliability in terms of system downtime

Performance in terms of time required to perform data retrieval/update across various nodes. The minimum response time for an IBM SNA network is 3 seconds. Longer than this value is deemed to be poor performance. Flexibility in terms of system expansion, failure etc.

Network Topology
Network topology is broadly classified into point-to-point or multi-point depending on the data transfer within the network. Point-to-point Message has to be transferred between two adjacent nodes linking up by various transmission media. A Point-to-Point depending on the topology as given in Figure is further divided into: Star ( A central node is required to relay messages) Every device in the network has a dedicated point-to-point link to the central computer but not to others. Therefore, if one device wants to communicate with another device other than the central computer, it must pass its message to the central computer for re-routing. The central computer acts as the network controller. Loop ( A message has to pass through several nodes in the system prior to be received by the targeted node.) The data movement can be either direction. Tree (A top node irrespective of topology is still required.) Complete (Direct connection between two nodes are formed.) This topology is ideal for military application in which reliability is the prime factor to be considered. Irregular or Mesh (Irregular shape). There is no specific path and solely depends on the system growth. This network is widely used in business applications. List the reasons why Irregular network is preferable in business environments? Broadcast

Message is sent to all nodes within the network by means of common bus. Bus topology like broadcasting radio or Ethernet network. It is essentially a single multidrop line shared by many nodes as shown in Figure . A message to be transmitted is placed on the common path and is broadcast to all the nodes. Obviously, all messages should be included with senders and receivers addresses. Messages which are not addressed to nodes in the network are ignored by them. Failure of any nodes in the bus does not affect the other nodes. In addition, new nodes can be added easily by tapping into the bus. Accessing to the link is often based on a contention policy. Ring topology like IBM Token Ring. All computing devices are connected in a ring. A device can communicate with any other devices in the ring. The data flow in such topology is unidirectional. All messages must be addressed. A special bit pattern called a token, acts like a poll in a multidrop line, is passed from node to node for regulating data traffic.

Comparison Among Different Topologies

Below shows the advantage and disadvantage amongst various network topologies. Type Star Loop Tree Complete Irregular (Mesh) Bus Advantage Simple and easy to identify fault Implementation is simple Graceful evolution Disadvantage Failure of central node causes disaster Failure of one of the nodes cause the collapse of whole network. Failure of upper level loses the capability of network.

Failure of one node in the network Implementation cost is expensive will not affect the rest Immunity to bottleneck and failure Expensive to provide an alternative problems routing Only a single communications Simple to control traffic flow channel is required to service all

Ring

Simple to implement

the nodes One channel is required to service all

Network Applications
There are numerous applications using networked computers such as:A central host computer with networked stations. Access to remote program by use of IBM LU 6.2 in local machine. Electronic mail such as all-in-1 mail used in VAX Access to the remote database (Library cataloging system) Financial information (Hong Kong Stock Exchange provided by Reuters) E-commerce, Web-shopping and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

Basic Terminologies for Different Networks

Networks regardless of type and feature are classified into Vendor network or Commercial Network. Vendor network is usually the proprietary network manufactured by a particular manufacturer while the commercial network is formed by using a single vendor network or grouping a few vendor networks to serve a commercial need such as the JETCO is formed by connecting to a few local banks with communication protocols using TCP/IP, IBM LU 6.2, X.25, Bi-sync or even the Internet HTTP etc.

Commercial Networks
Abbreviation ARPANET Description As created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency whose project started in 1969. It refers to the National Science Foundation Internet(NSFNet). It was part of APPARNET and was split into an Academic and Research base network running mostly the TCP/IP protocol. CityU is one of the Internet nodes and the Internet address is 144.214.2.3. Is the commercial public service offshoot of ARPANET Is the commercial time-sharing network of Control Data

The Internet

Telenet CYBERNET

MARK III TYMNET SWIFT DDX Datapak DATAPAC Vendor Network

Corporation with Centers located around the world. Is GEs Information Service Network dealing with current exchange Is a subsidiary of Tymshare Inc., was originally developed as part of the time-sharing system. Is the Society for World Wide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. The asia service centre is located in Hong Kong. Is the Japanese packet switched network. Is a packet switching network offered by Hong Kong Telephone company using a protocol based on X.25. Is a Canadian packet switched network using a protocol based on X.25

The network is manufactured and supported by the vendors. Type Description

Communication Organisations
Communication standards are formulated and designed by certain International Organizations. A few well known organizations are: Type Description

Network Evolution
The evolution of communication networks starts from primitive analogy telephone exchange to commonly used Local Area Network.

Telephone network

It was originally designed for the transmission of voice and is still the largest communications network in the world as shown in Figure . You can use this network to deliver voice, FAX or even low-resolution video image by use of video telephone, A pair of modems is used to convert the digital signal in analog form so that the signal will not be distorted after passing through the telephone network. A dedicated physical channel is required for each telephone conversation.

Terminal-based Distributed System

In order to extend the terminals, a pair of modems is used between the central computer and the teletype writer. The line speed is limited by the quality of public switched telephone network as shown in Figure . The current typical value is 28800 bps (Bit per Second) and is moving to the speed of 56k bps.

Large Terminal-based Distributed System

The communication loading is shared by the front process which will collect all the related messages after proper processing prior to sending to the host in order to reduce the hosts interruption as shown in Figure . A typical cluster controller is IBM 3174 which can support up to 32 IBM interactive terminals and is ideal for regional banking service in Hong Kong.

PSDN-based Distributed System

It is a digital network such as datapak developed by Hong Kong Telecom to allow multi-proprietary machines to connect to this network to exchange information. When you login to the CityUs network, you already made a connection to Hong Kong Telecoms digital network, X.25. The quality of message delivered is guaranteed by this network. Figure shows the PSDN based distributed system.

LAN-based Distributed System

As Local Area Network(LAN) is getting popular in small size office, there are a strong demand to connect various LANs and Wide Area Network such as X.25 together to provide distributed service. The networks backbone as shown in Figure is commonly equipped with either coaxial or optical fiber. A network with the same protocol can be communicated with others through a repeater.

The network also has certain gateways to talk to other non-LAN based system such as Asynchronous gateway to VAX. Nowadays, TCP/IP protocol is commonly used to link up multi-vendor networks to provide file transfer, Email, Internet-based product etc. Explain why high speed backbone is used. If the network backbone is not a high speed medium, what is the consequence?

It can support multi-media such as voice and video. If it is not used, it becomes the bottleneck of the network.

The Internet
The term Internet is used in two contexts. The first one, an internet refes to the interconnection of two or more networks. The second one, the Internet, refers to the specific collection of interconnected networks spanning more than 60 countries throughout the world. The member networks are both WANs (Wide Area Networks) and LANs (Local Area Networks), which were initally academic institutions and research facilities. The internet now, apart form academia, consists of business organisations, government agenceis and even household Internet-like service subscriptions. Computers in the Internet fall into two basic categories: host nodes (servers) and terminals (browser). Host nodes are used to attach a network to the internet. Non-host nodes, on the other hand, access the Internet through a host node but are not directly connected to the Internet. Access to the Internet is provided at three basic levels, namely, national, regional and local. National providers are commercial entities that sell access to the Internet. The Internet uses a variety of communications lines. The backbone nodes use T1 or T3 links to provide transmission from one area to another. Figure shows a fraction of Internet backbone Network in US. In Hong Kong, the internal central hub is located at Chinese University of Hong Kong with a high speed link connected to US Seattle. What is http?

It is one of the services offered by the Intenrt and is called Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. This is the protocol used to transfer the Hyper Text in HTML format.

Self-examined Questions
List the definition of data communications.

List two reasons to explain why data communications is getting booming for the past ten years. List THREE characteristics of cluster networks.

List THREE characteristics of distributed networks.

What are some of the reasons for having networks?

What is the difference between a loop and a ring network?

List two different network topologies.

List the THREE categories of data communication components.

Briefly list the components in a typical banking network in Hong Kong. (Hint Each branch is equipped with a cluster controller to serve a few banking terminals.)

When you are using the ICQ, what is the network topology? Point to Point or Broadcast.