Switching: It is process to forward packets coming in from one port to a port leading towards the destination.

When data
comes on a port it is called ingress, and when data leaves a port or goes out it is called egress. A communication system
may include number of switches and nodes. At broad level, switching can be divided into two major categories:

 Connectionless: The data is forwarded on behalf of forwarding tables. No previous handshaking is required and
acknowledgements are optional.
 Connection Oriented: Before switching data to be forwarded to destination, there is a need to pre-establish
circuit along the path between both endpoints. Data is then forwarded on that circuit. After the transfer is
completed, circuits can be kept for future use or can be turned down immediately.

Circuit Switching: When two nodes communicate with each other over a dedicated communication path, it is called
circuit switching.There 'is a need of pre-specified route from which data will travels and no other data is permitted.In
circuit switching, to transfer the data, circuit must be established so that the data transfer can take place.

Circuits can be permanent or temporary. Applications which use circuit switching may have to go through three phases:

 Establish a circuit
 Transfer the data
 Disconnect the circuit

Circuit switching was designed for voice applications. Telephone is the best suitable example of
circuit switching. Before a user can make a call, a virtual path between caller and callee is established over the network.

Circuit switching uses any of the three technologies: Space-division switches, Time-division switches or a
combination of both.

Space-division Switch: In Space-division switching, the paths in the circuit are separated with each other
spatially, i.e. different ongoing connections, at a same instant of time, uses different switching paths, which are
separated spatially. This was originally developed for the analog environment, and has been carried over to the
digital domain. Some of the space switches are crossbar switches, Multi-stage switches (e.g. Omega Switches).
A crossbar switch is shown in the below Figure. Basic building block of the switch is a metallic crosspoint or
semiconductor gate that can be enabled or disabled by a control unit.

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Limitations of crossbar switches are as follows:
• The number of crosspoints grows with the square of the number of attached stations.
• Costly for a large switch.
• The failure of a crosspoint prevents connection between the two devices whose lines intersect at that
crosspoint.
• The crosspoints are inefficiently utilized.
• Only a small fraction of crosspoints are engaged even if all of the attached devices are active

Time Division Switching: In Time Division Switching Both voice and

data can be transmitted using digital signals through the same switches.
All modern circuit switches use digital time-division multiplexing
(TDM) technique for establishing and maintaining circuits. Synchronous
TDM allows multiple low-speed bit streams to share a high-speed line. A
set of inputs is sampled in a round robin manner. The samples are
organized serially into slots (channels) to form a recurring frame of slots.
During successive time slots, different I/O pairings are enabled, allowing
a number of connections to be carried over the shared bus. To keep up
with the input lines, the data rate on the bus must be high enough so that
the slots recur sufficiently frequently.

Time-division switching uses time-division multiplexing to achieve

switching, i.e. different ongoing connections can use same switching path
but at different interleaved time intervals. There are two popular methods
of time-division switching namely, Time-Slot Interchange (TSI) and the
TDM bus. TSI changes the ordering of the slots based on desired
connection and it has a random-access memory to store data and flip the
time slots

Message Switching: This technique was somewhere in middle of circuit switching and packet switching. In message
switching, the whole message is treated as a data unit and is switching / transferred in its entirety.

A switch working on message switching, first receives the whole message and buffers it until there are resources available
to transfer it to the next hop. If the next hop is not having enough resource to accommodate large size message, the
message is stored and switch waits.

This technique was considered substitute to circuit switching. As in circuit switching the whole path is blocked for two
entities only. Message switching is replaced by packet switching. Message switching has the following drawbacks:

 Every switch in transit path needs enough storage to accommodate entire message.
 Because of store-and-forward technique and waits included until resources are available, message switching is very
slow.

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  Message switching was not a solution for streaming media and real-time applications.

Packet Switching: Shortcomings of message switching gave birth to an idea of packet switching. The entire message is
broken down into smaller chunks called packets. The switching information is added in the header of each packet and
transmitted independently.

It is easier for intermediate networking devices to store small size packets and they do not take much resources either on
carrier path or in the internal memory of switches.

Packet switching enhances line efficiency as packets from multiple applications can be multiplexed over the carrier. The
internet uses packet switching technique. Packet switching enables the user to differentiate data streams based on priorities.
Packets are stored and forwarded according to their priority to provide quality of service.

Q. Comparison Study between Circuit Switching and Packet Switching.

BASIS FOR
CIRCUIT SWITCHING PACKET SWITCHING
COMPARISON

Orientation Connection oriented. Connectionless.

Purpose Initially designed for Voice communication. Initially designed for Data Transmission.

Flexibility Inflexible, because once a path is set all parts of Flexible, because a route is created for each

a transmission follows the same path. packet to travel to the destination.

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 BASIS FOR
CIRCUIT SWITCHING PACKET SWITCHING
COMPARISON

Order Message is received in the order, sent from the Packets of a message are received out of order

source. and assembled at the destination.

Technology/Approach Circuit switching can be achieved using two Packet Switching has two approaches

technologies, either Space Division Switching Datagram Approach and Virtual Circuit

or Time-Division Switching. Approach.

Layers Circuit Switching is implemented at Physical Packet Switching is implemented at Network

Layer. Layer.