Chapter 18.

Virtual-Circuit Networks: Frame Relay and ATM

18.1 Frame Relay 18.2 ATM 18.3 ATM LANs

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Wide area network and switching methods

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Circuit switching
Create a real circuit (dedicated line) between source and destination Physical layer technology

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Packet Switching: Datagram Approach

Mostly used in the network layer Routing (selecting the best route for a packet) is performed at each router

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Packet Switching: Virtual Circuit Approach

Packets (frames) are switched along a pre-determined path from source to destination Virtual circuit network has two addresses
Global address which is unique in the WAN Virtual circuit identifier which is actually used for data transfer

VCI has switch scope; it is used between two switches Each switch can use its own unique set of VCIs

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VCI Phases
Two approaches for the VC setup
Permanent virtual circuit (PVC): Switched virtual circuit (SVC): setup, data transfer, teardown

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Data Transfer Phase

All switches need to have a table entry for the virtual circuit

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Data Transfer using VCI

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SVC Setup: Request and Acknowledgment

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Frame Relay
Frame Relay is a virtual circuit wide area network VCIs in Frame Relay are called DLCIs(Data Link Connection Identifier)

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Frame Relay Features

Frame relay operates at a higher speed. It can easily be used instead of a mesh of T1 or T-3 lines (1.544 Mbps or 44.376 Mbps) Frame relay operates just the physical and data link layers. It is good as a backbone to provide services to protocols that already have a network layer protocol, such as Internet It allows burst data It allows a frame size of 9000 bytes accommodating all LAN frame sizes It is less expensive than other traditional WANs It has error detection at the data link layer only. There is no flow control error control

X.25 Leased Lines Frame Relay

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Frame Relay vs. T-line Network

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Frame Relay vs. X.25 Network

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ATM
Asynchronous Transfer Mode ATM is the cell relay protocol designed by ATM forum and adopted by ITU-T ATM uses asynchronous TDM Cells are transmitted along virtual circuits Design Goals
Large bandwidth and less susceptible to noise degradation Interface with existing systems without lowering their effectiveness Inexpensive implementation Support the existing telecommunications hierarchies Connection-oriented to ensure accurate and predictable delivery Many functions are hardware implementable

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Multiplexing using Cells

The variety of packet sizes makes traffic unpredictable A cell network uses the cell as the basic unit of data exchange
A cell is defined as a small, fixed sized block of information Cells are interleaved so that non suffers a long delay A cell network can handle real-time transmissions Network operation is more efficient and cheaper

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Synchronous vs. Asynchronous TDM

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Asynchronous TDM
It uses Fixed-Size slots. Asynchronous TDM- Fill a slot with a cell from any i nput channel that has a cell From any input channel th at has a cell; the slot is empty if none of the channel h as a cell to send. It multiplex cells coming from different channels.

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ATM Architecture
UNI: user-to-network interface NNI: network-to-network interface

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Virtual Connection
Connection between two endpoints is accomplished through
Transmission path (TP)- Set of All Path That connects two Switches are is Called TP Virtual path (VP)- Each path that connects two switches is called VP Virtual circuit (VC)- Each lane in that path is called VP

A virtual connection is defined by a pair of numbers: VPI and VCI

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VPI and VCI: Hierarchical Switching

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Identifiers
VPI(Virtual path identifier) and VCI(Virtual Circuit Identifier) These two levels of identifier are used to identify the route fro m one endpoint to another endpoint. The lengths of the VPIs for the UNIs and NNIs are different. In UNI, the VPI is 8 bits, where in NNI its 12 bits. The VCI is the same in both interfaces 16 bits. So VC is identified by 24 bits in UNI and 28 bits in NNI.

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Identifiers and Cells

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VPI Switch and VPC Switch

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ATM Layers
Physical Layer Like Ethernet and Wireless LANs, ATM Cells can be carried b y any physical layer carrier. It uses SONET and Other Physical technologies. ATM layer It provides routing, traffic management, switching, and multipl exing services. It processes outgoing traffic by accepting 48 byte segments fro m the AAL sub layers and transforming them into 53-byte cells by the ad dition of a 5- byte header.

ATM Layers

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ATM Layer and Headers

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Header Format
ATM uses two formats for this header, one for User to network interface cells and other for Network to Network interface cells. GFC(Generic Flow Control) :- 4-bit GFC Field provides flow control at the UNI level. ITU-T Determined that this level of Flow control is not necessary at the NNI level. VPI VCI PT(Payload Type) :- In the 3-bit PT Field, the First bit defines the payload as user data or managerial information. The last two bits Depends on the first bit. CLP(Cell Loss priority) :- 1-bit CLP field is provided for Congestion control. HEC(Header Error Correction) :- The HEC is a code computed for the first 4 bytes of the header. It is a CRC with the DIVISOR x8+x2+x+1 for Single Bit error

Application Adaptation Layer (AAL)

Convert data from upper-layer into 48-byte data units for the ATM cells AAL1 constant bit rate (CBR) video and voice AAL2 variable bit rate (VBR) stream low-bit-rate traffic an short-frame traffic such as audio (ex: mobile phone) AAL3/4 connection-oriented/connectionless data AAL5 SEAL (Simple and Efficient Adaptation Layer) No sequencing and error control mechanisms

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AAL1

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AAL2

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AAL3/4

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AAL5

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ATM LAN
ATM is mainly a wide-area network (WAN ATM); however, the technology can be adapted to local-area networks (ATM LANs). The high data rate of the technology has attracted the attention of designers who are looking for greater and greater speeds in LANs.

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Pure and Legacy ATM LAN

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Mixed Architecture ATM LAN

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LAN Emulation (LANE)

Connectionless versus connection-oriented Physical addresses versus virtual-circuit identifiers Multicasting and broadcasting delivery Interoperability Client/Server model in a LANE
LANE Configuration Server (LECS), LANE Server (LES), LANE Client (LEC) Broadcast/Unknown Server (BUS)

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Mixed Architecture Using LANE

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