“Switching" refers to the process of directing data packets between devices on a

network using a network switch

 Delay
• Transmission Delay

• Propagation Delay

• Processing Delay

• Queuing Delay

• Total Delay
The transmission rate of the main link in the calculation of the throughput is
only 200 kbps because the link is shared between three paths.
 When the load is much less than the
capacity of the network, the delay is at a
minimum. This minimum delay is
composed of propagation delay and
processing delay, both of which are
negligible. However, when the load reaches
the network capacity, the delay increases
sharply because we now need to add the
queuing delay to the total delay. Note that
the delay becomes infinite when the load is
greater than the capacity.

When the load is below the capacity of the

network, the throughput increases
proportionally with the load. We expect the
throughput to remain constant after the load
reaches the capacity, but instead the
throughput declines sharply. The reason is the
discarding of packets by the routers. When the
load exceeds the capacity, the queues become
full and the routers have to discard some
packets which leads to retransmission.
 Congestion Control
• In general, we can divide congestion control
mechanisms into two broad categories:
– open-loop congestion control (prevention) and
– closed-loop congestion control (removal)
 Open-Loop Congestion Control
• In open-loop congestion control, policies are
applied to prevent congestion before it happens.
• In these mechanisms, congestion control is
handled by either the source or the destination.
– Retransmission Policy
– Window Policy
– Acknowledgment Policy
– Discarding Policy
– Admission Policy
 Open-Loop Congestion Control
• Retransmission Policy:
– Retransmission is sometimes unavoidable. If the
sender feels that a sent packet is lost or corrupted, the
packet needs to be retransmitted.
– Retransmission in general may increase congestion in
the network.
– However, a good retransmission policy can prevent
congestion.
– The retransmission policy and the retransmission
timers must be designed to optimize efficiency and at
the same time prevent congestion.
 Open-Loop Congestion Control
• Window Policy:
– The type of window at the sender may also affect
congestion.
– Selective Repeat window is better than the Go-
Back-N window for congestion control.
 Open-Loop Congestion Control
• Acknowledgment Policy:
– The acknowledgment policy imposed by the receiver
may also affect congestion.
– If the receiver does not acknowledge every packet it
receives, it may slow down the sender and help
prevent congestion.
– Several approaches are used in this case. A receiver
may send an acknowledgment only if it has a packet
to be sent or a special timer expires.
– A receiver may decide to acknowledge only N packets
at a time.
 Open-Loop Congestion Control
• Discarding Policy:
– A good discarding policy by the routers may
prevent congestion and at the same time may not
harm the integrity of the transmission. For
example, in audio transmission, if the policy is to
discard less sensitive packets when congestion is
likely to happen, the quality of sound is still
preserved and congestion is prevented or
alleviated.
 Open-Loop Congestion Control
• Admission Policy:
– An admission policy, which is a quality-of-service
mechanism, can also prevent congestion in
virtual-circuit networks.
– Switches in a flow first check the resource
requirement of a flow before admitting it to the
network.
– A router can deny establishing a virtual-circuit
connection if there is congestion in the network or
if there is a possibility of future congestion.
 Closed-Loop Congestion Control
• Closed-loop congestion control mechanisms
try to alleviate congestion after it happens.
• Several mechanisms have been used by
different protocols.
– Backpressure
– Choke Packet
– Implicit Signaling
– Explicit Signaling
Backpressure is a node-to-node congestion control that starts with a node
and propagates, in the opposite direction of data flow, to the source. The
backpressure technique can be applied only to virtual circuit networks, in
which each node knows the upstream node from which a flow of data is
coming.
A choke packet is a packet sent by a node to the source to inform it of congestion. Note the
difference between the backpressure and choke-packet methods. In backpressure, the
warning is from one node to its upstream node, although the warning may eventually reach
the source station. In the choke-packet method, the warning is from the router, which has
encountered congestion, directly to the source station. The intermediate nodes through
which the packet has traveled are not warned.
 Closed-Loop Congestion Control
• Implicit Signaling:
– In implicit signaling, there is no communication
between the congested node or nodes and the
source.
– The source guesses that there is congestion
somewhere in the network from other symptoms.
– For example, when a source sends several packets and
there is no acknowledgment for a while, one
assumption is that the network is congested. The
delay in receiving an acknowledgment is interpreted
as congestion in the network; the source should slow
down.
 Closed-Loop Congestion Control
• Explicit Signaling:
– The node that experiences congestion can explicitly
send a signal to the source or destination.
– The explicit-signaling method, however, is different
from the choke-packet method.
– In the choke-packet method, a separate packet is used
for this purpose; in the explicit-signaling method, the
signal is included in the packets that carry data.
– Explicit signaling can occur in either the forward or
the backward direction.
The number of addresses in a block needs to be a power of 2. Unlike classful addressing,
the prefix length in classless addressing is variable. We can have a prefix length that
ranges from 0 to 32. The size of the network is inversely proportional to the length of the
prefix. A small prefix means a larger network; a large prefix means a smaller network.

The idea of classless addressing can be easily applied to classful addressing. An address
in class A can be thought of as a classless address in which the prefix length is 8. An
address in class B can be thought of as a classless address in which the prefix is 16, and
so on. In other words, classful addressing is a special case of classless addressing.
The notation is informally referred to as slash notation and formally as classless
interdomain routing or CIDR