Department of Electrical Engineering.

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad.

PART 2: PHYSICAL LAYER & MEDIA

SWITCHING
Switched Network

2
Taxonomy of Switched Networks

3
 Circuit-Switched Networks
A circuit-switched network consists of a set of switches
connected by physical links. A connection between two
stations is a dedicated path made of one or more links.
However, each connection uses only one dedicated
channel on each link. Each link is normally divided into
n channels by using FDM or TDM.

Topics discussed in this section:

Three Phases
Efficiency
Delay
Circuit-Switched Technology in Telephone Networks
4
Note

A circuit-switched network is made of a set of

switches connected by physical links, in which
each link is
divided into n channels.

5
A trivial circuit-switched network

6
Note

In circuit switching, the resources need to be

reserved during the setup phase;
the resources remain dedicated for the entire
duration of data transfer until the teardown
phase.

7
 Points to be emphasized

1. Circuit switching takes place at the physical layer.

2. Before starting communication, the stations must
make a reservation for the resources to be used
during the communication.
3.Data transferred between the two stations are not
packetized (physical layer transfer of the signal).
4. There is no addressing involved during data transfer

8
Delay in Circuit-Switched Network

9
Note

Switching at the physical layer in the

traditional telephone network uses
the circuit-switching approach.

10
 Datagram Networks
In data communications, we need to send messages
from one end system to another. If the message is
going to pass through a packet-switched network, it
needs to be divided into packets of fixed or variable
size. The size of the packet is determined by the
network and the governing protocol.

Topics discussed in this section:

Routing Table
Efficiency
Delay
Datagram Networks in the Internet
11
Note

In a packet-switched network, there

is no resource reservation;
resources are allocated on demand.

12
A datagram network with four
switches (routers)

13
Routing table in a datagram network

14
 Datagram network

Note

A switch in a datagram network uses a routing

table that is based on the destination address.

15
 Datagram network

Note

The destination address in the header of a

packet in a datagram network
remains the same during the entire journey of
the packet.

16
Delay in a datagram network

17
Note

Switching in the Internet is done by using the

datagram approach
to packet switching at
the network layer.

18
A Heterogeneous Network made of
4 WANs and 2 LANs

19
 Virtual-Circuit Networks
A virtual-circuit network is a cross between a
circuit-switched network and a datagram
network. It has some characteristics of both.

20
• As in a circuit-switched network, there are setup and
teardown phases in addition to the data transfer
phase.
• Resources can be allocated during the setup phase,
as in a circuit switched network, or on demand, as in a
datagram network.
• As in a datagram network, data are packetized and
each packet carries an address in the header.
However, the address in the header has local
jurisdiction.
• As in a circuit-switched network, all packets follow the
same path established during the connection.
• virtual-circuit network is normally implemented in the
data link layer, while a circuit-switched network is
implemented in the physical layer and a datagram
network in the network layer. But this may change in
the future.

21
Virtual-Circuit Identifier

22
Switch and tables in a virtual-circuit network

23
Setup request in a virtual-circuit network

24
Setup acknowledgment in a virtual-circuit network

25
Source-to-destination data transfer in a virtual-circuit
network

26
Note

In virtual-circuit switching, all packets

belonging to the same source and
destination travel the same path;
but the packets may arrive at the destination
with different delays
if resource allocation is on demand.

27
Delay in a virtual-circuit network

28
Note

Switching at the data link layer in a switched

WAN is normally
implemented by using
virtual-circuit techniques.

29
8-4 STRUCTURE OF A SWITCH

We use switches in circuit-switched and packet-

switched networks.

30
 Crossbar Switch with 3 inputs and
4 outputs
• Crossbar switch connects n inputs and m
outputs in a grid using microswitches
(transistors) in each Crosspoints.

31
Multistage switch

32
Note

In a three-stage switch, the total

number of crosspoints is
2kN + k(N/n)2
which is much smaller than the number of
crosspoints in a single-stage switch (N2).

33
Design a three-stage, 200 × 200 switch (N = 200) with
k = 4 and n = 20.

Solution
In the first stage we have N/n or 10 crossbars, each of size
20 × 4. In the second stage, we have 4 crossbars, each of
size 10 × 10. In the third stage, we have 10 crossbars,
each of size 4 × 20. The total number of crosspoints is
2kN + k(N/n)2, or 2000 crosspoints. This is 5 percent of
the number of crosspoints in a single-stage switch (200 ×
200 = 40,000).
34