Sem1 - Module 8 Ethernet Switching

Shared media environments Shared media environment: –Occurs when multiple hosts have access to the same medium. –For example, if several PCs are attached to the same physical wire, optical fiber, or share the same airspace, they all share the same media environment. Extended shared media environment: –Is a special type of shared media environment in which networking devices can extend the environment so that it can accommodate multiple access or longer cable distances. Point-to-point network environment: –Is widely used in dialup network connections and is the most familiar to the home user. –It is a shared networking environment in which one device is connected to only one other device, such as connecting a computer to an Internet service provider by modem and a phone line.

Collision domains Collision domains are the connected physical network segments where collisions can occur. Collisions cause the network to be inefficient. Every time a collision happens on a network, all transmission stops for a period of time. Bridges/Switches (Layer 2) and Routers (Layer3) devices breaking up, or increase the number of collision domains - also known as segmentation. Layer 2 devices filter using MAC addresses; Layer 3 devices filter using IP addresses. Layer 1 devices, such as repeaters and hubs, serve the primary function of extending the Ethernet cable segments.

Ethernet Bridging A bridge has only two ports and divides a collision domain into two parts. All decisions made by a bridge are based on MAC or Layer 2 addressing and do not affect the logical or Layer 3 addressing. A router use the destination IP address to make a forwarding decisions. Thus, a bridge will divide a collision domain but has no effect on a logical or broadcast domain. No matter how many bridges are in a network, unless there is a device such as a router that works on Layer 3 addressing, the entire network will share the same logical broadcast address space. A bridge will create more collision domains but will not add broadcast domains.

Ethernet Switching As more nodes are added to an Ethernet physical segment, contention for the media increases. Ethernet is a shared media, which means only one node can transmit data at a time. The addition of more nodes increases the demands on the available bandwidth and places additional loads on the media. By increasing the number of nodes on a single segment, the probability of collisions increases, resulting in more retransmissions and Broadcast storms: –This causes slower data transmissions A solution to the problem is to break the large segment into parts and separate it into isolated collision domains.

Ethernet Switching Switch is essentially a fast, multi-port bridge, which can contain dozens of ports. Rather than creating two collision domains, each port creates its own collision domain. In a network of twenty nodes, twenty collision domains exist if each node is plugged into its own switch port. A switch dynamically builds and maintains a Content-Addressable Memory (CAM) table, holding all of the necessary MAC information for each port. Most switches are capable of supporting full duplex, as are most network interface cards (NICs). In full duplex mode, there is no contention for the media. Thus, a collision domain no longer exists. Theoretically, the bandwidth is doubled when using full duplex.

Ethernet Switching To accomplish this a bridge keeps a table of MAC addresses and the associated ports. The bridge then forwards or discards frames based on the table entries. The bridge has just been started so the bridge table is empty. The bridge just waits for traffic on the segment. When traffic is detected, it is processed by the bridge.

Ethernet Switching Host A is now going to ping Host B, Host C & Host D. Host B, C & D processes the ping request and transmits a ping reply back to Host A. When these hosts transmit data, their MAC addresses will also be recorded in the bridge table. This is how the bridge controls traffic between to collision domains.

Latency Latency is the delay between the time a frame first starts to leave the source device and the time the first part of the frame reaches its destination. A wide variety of conditions can cause delays as a frame travels from source to destination: –Media delays caused by the finite speed that signals can travel through the physical media –Circuit delays caused by the electronics that process the signal along the path. –Software delays caused by the decisions that software must make to implement switching and protocols. –Delays caused by the content of the frame and where in the frame switching decisions can be made. –For example, a device cannot route a frame to a destination until the destination MAC address has been read.

Switch Latency A switch adds 21 microseconds of latency. This can be reduced by using a different switching method As opposed to store-and-forward, the switch can use cut-through switching which switches the packet as soon as the destination MAC is read.

Two Switching Methods Store-and-Forward The switch receives the entire frame, calculating the CRC at the end, before sending it to the destination Cut-through (no error checking) Fast forward switching-- only checks the destination MAC before immediately forwarding the frame Fragment Free--reads the first 64 bytes to reduce errors before forwarding the frame

Spanning-Tree Protocol When multiple switches are arranged in a simple tree, switching loops are unlikely to occur. However, switched networks are often designed with redundant paths to provide for reliability and fault tolerance. While redundant paths are desirable, they can have undesirable side effects. Switching loops are one such side effect. To counteract the possibility of loops, switches are provided with a standards-based protocol called the Spanning-Tree Protocol (STP). Each switch in a LAN using STP sends special messages called Bridge Protocol Data Units (BPDUs) out all its ports to let other switches know of its existence and to elect a root bridge for the network. The switches then use the Spanning-Tree Algorithm (STA) to resolve and shut down the redundant paths.

Spanning-Tree Protocol Each port on a switch using Spanning-Tree Protocol exists in one of the following five states: –Blocking (receives BPDUs only) –Listening (Building “active” topology) –Learning (Building Bridging/Switching table) –Forwarding (Sending and receiving user data) –Disabled (administratively down) A port moves through these five states as follows: –From initialization to blocking –From blocking to listening or to disabled –From listening to learning or to disabled –From learning to forwarding or to disabled –From forwarding to disabled

Chapter #8 Test!