Networking Concepts

Agenda

Networking Basics
Networking Technologies
Ethernet Technology
Ethernet Devices
Switch Architecture
Switch Building Blocks
CAM
L2 Protocols

Networking Basics Key Network

Terminologies
Node
Anything connected to the network, usually a computer, but it could
be a printer or a scanner

Segment
Any portion of a network that is separated by a switch, bridge or a
router from another part of a network

Backbone
The main cabling of a network that all of the segment connect to.
Usually, the backbone is capable of carrying more information than
the individual segments

Topology
The way each node is physically connected to the network

Networking Basics Types of connections

Wired Networks
Wireless Networks
Mobile Networks

Networking Basics Wired Connections

Wired Connections
Physically connect computers together
Use of wires or optical cables
Connections are called network links

Physical Links
Twisted pair
Coaxial cable
Fiber-optic cable

Multi Mode Fiber

MM is optical fiber that is designed to carry multiple light rays or
modes concurrently, each at a slightly different reflection angle
within the optical fiber core
used for relatively short distances because the modes tend to
disperse over longer lengths

Single Mode Fiber

For longer distances, single mode fiber (Sometimes called
Monomode) fiber is used
In single mode fiber a single ray or mode of light act as a carrier

Networking Basics Wireless Connections

Wireless connections
Link is made using electromagnetic energy that goes through space
Do not use any wires or cables

Wireless Communications commonly used in Networking

Infrared
Radio Frequency
Microwave

Networking Basics Network Topology &

Category
Topology
Bus, Star, Mesh, Ring, Tree

Category according to the size

LAN
A collection of nodes within a small area
Nodes linked through topology

MAN
Consists of many local area networks linked together
Span the distance of just a few miles

WAN
Consists of a number of computer networks including LANs
Links national/international boundaries

Networking Basics LAN/MAN/WAN

Technologies
LAN Technology
Token Ring IEEE 802.5
Ethernet IEEE 802.3

MAN Technology
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)
Switched Multi-megabit Data Service (SMDS)

WAN Technology

Circuit Switching
Packet Switching
Frame Relay
X.25
PPP
DSL
ISDN

Networking Basics LAN/MAN/WAN

Ethernet Overview Robert Metcalfes

drawing of the first Ethernet Design

Ethernet Overview

Ethernet is reliable and inexpensive, the leading standard worldwide

for building wired networks
Ethernet is a physical and data link layer technology for networks
Higher level network protocols use Ethernet as their transmission
medium
Data travels over Ethernet inside protocol units called frames

Ethernet Overview
Traditional Ethernet
Traditional Ethernet employs a bus topology, wherein all devices or
hosts on the network use the same shared communication line. Each
device possesses an Ethernet address, also known as MAC address.
Sending devices use Ethernet addresses to specify the intended
recipient of messages

CSMA/CD
In traditional Ethernet, protocol for broadcasting, listening, and
detecting collisions is known as CSMA/CD

Full Duplex
Supports point-to-point simultaneous sends and receives with no
listening

Ethernet Evolution
10BaseX (10BaseT)
Fast Ethernet
Gigabit Ethernet
10Gigabit Ethernet
40/100 Gigabit Ethernet

Ethernet Frame Format

Unicast
Multicast
Broadcast

Ethernet Devices
Hub
Physical layer device with no intelligence and decision making
Broadcast the information

Repeater
Physical layer device, used to amplify the input signals
Removes the delay, distortion and noise

Bridge
Layer 2 device, connects two LANs that uses same protocol

Switch
Layer 2 device with decision making intelligence
Operates based on MAC address
Creates Networks

Router
Layer 3 device, connects different networks, uses IP address to
forward packets

How LAN Switches Works?

Learning
Flooding
Forwarding and Filtering
Ageing
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)

Switching Methods
Cut through Switching
Developed to reduce the latency inside the switch
Forwards the frame as soon as it reads the Destination MAC
No error checking

Store and Forward Switching

Copies the each complete frame into memory
Computes CRC for errors, length check (Short/Jumbo)
Outgoing interface is determined by the DA

Switch High level blocks

Housekeeping Processor functions

Used to implement control and management functions

Typical processors used MIPS, ARM, PowerPC
Spanning Tree Protocol
Link Aggregation Control Protocol
Marker Protocol
Network Management
Internal Diagnostics & Maintenance

Device Initialization
Power on self test
Diagnostics and debug routines
ROM code update capability, and so on

Switch Ingress Path

Switch Rx Path
Rx Port Interfaces
PHY Decodes the electrical/optical signals into bit/nibble/byte
MAC Framing and validity checking, Statistics counters

Receive flow control

PAUSE Frames

Link aggregation collector

Multiple physical interfaces aggregated into single logical interface

Classification Engine Frame parsing and classification

Local Sinking of reserved multicast address Forwards the link
constrained protocol packets to processor (RST BPDU, LACP BPDU)
VLAN Ingress Rules to decide the VLAN group in which frame belongs
to using MAC address, protocol types, parsed headers with VLAN
lookup tables.
Priority assessment Extracted from VLAN or priority tag, LAN specific
priority signals (priority field in FDDI/Token Ring)

Switch - Internal Header

Switch Lookup Engine

Heart of the switch forwarding process
Decides what to do with frames
Result of lookup will be a set of output ports to which a
given frame should be passed
Frames with unicast destination maps to single output port
Frames with multicast destination maps to one or more
output ports

Switch - Lookup Engine Implementation

Depends on the complexity of lookup operation and the
number and data rate of the ports being supported
Content Addressable Memory (CAM)
Pseudo CAM Standard memory (SRAM) with finite state
machine that emulates operation of a CAM
Embedded micro engines providing flexible, programmable
lookup under software control
Centralized lookup
Distributed lookup

Switch Fabrics
Transfers frames among all of the input ports and output
ports of the switch
Switch fabric design is critical to the performance of the
switch
Switch architectures widely used in commercial LAN switch
products
Shared Memory
Shared Bus
Crosspoint Matrix

Switch Fabric Shared memory architecture

Switch Fabric- Buffer organization

Contiguous Buffers
Discontiguous Buffers

Switch Egress Path

Switch - Egress Path

Output Filters
Determines whether the output port is in member for the VLAN in
which the frame belongs to.
VLAN tagging/untagging

Output Queues and priority handling

Responsible for Class of Service (CoS)
Queues per port/per CoS
De-queued and submitted for transmission according to priority policies
implemented in the output queue scheduler
Scheduler policies strict priority, Weighted Fair Queueing (WFQ), etc

Link aggregation distributor

Single logical link aggregated into multiple physical links

Transmit flow control

Halts the transmission upon detection of Rx Pause frames

Port Interfaces (Tx)

MAC
PHY

Content Addressable Memory (CAM)

Content Addressable
Memory is a special kind of
memory!
Read operation in
traditional memory:
Input is address location of
the content that we are
interested in it.
Output is the content of that
address.

In CAM it is the reverse:

Input is associated with
something stored in the
memory.
Output is location where the
associated content is stored

CAM for Routing Table Implementation

CAM can be used as a search engine.
We want to find matching contents in a database or Table.
Example Routing Table

Simplified CAM Block Diagram

The input to the system is the search word.
The search word is broadcast on the search lines.
Match line indicates if there were a match btw. the search
and stored word.
Encoder specifies the match location.
If multiple matches, a priority encoder selects the first
match.
Hit signal specifies if there is no match.
The length of the search word is long ranging from 36 to
144 bits.
Table size ranges: a few hundred to 32K.
Address space : 7 to 15 bits.

CAM Basics
The search-data word is
loaded into the search-data
register.
All match-lines are precharged to high (temporary
match state).
Search line drivers
broadcast the search word
onto the differential search
lines.
Each CAM core compares its
stored bit against the bit on
the corresponding searchlines.
Match words that have at
least one missing bit,
discharge to ground.

Type of CAMs
Binary CAM (BCAM) only stores 0s and 1s
Applications: MAC table consultation. Layer 2 security related VPN
segregation.

Ternary CAM (TCAM) stores 0s, 1s and dont cares.

Application: when we need wilds cards such as, layer 3 and 4
classification for QoS and CoS purposes. IP routing (longest prefix
matching).

Available sizes: 1Mb, 2Mb, 4.7Mb, 9.4Mb, and 18.8Mb.

CAM Advantages
They associate the input (comparand) with their memory
contents in one clock cycle.
They are configurable in multiple formats of width and
depth of search data that allows searches to be conducted
in parallel.
CAM can be cascaded to increase the size of lookup tables
that they can store.
They are one of the appropriate solutions for higher
speeds.

CAM Disadvantages
They cost several hundred of dollars per CAM even in large
quantities.
They occupy a relatively large footprint on a card.
They consume excessive power.
Generic system engineering problems:
Interface with network processor.
Simultaneous table update and looking up requests

Alternative Hardware Implementations

Tree search
Hashing Algorithms

L2 Protocols

LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol)

VLAN
STP/RSTP/MSTP
FDDI
Frame Relay
HDLC
WiFi
WiMAX
PPP
Token Ring
VTP (VLAN Trunking Protocol)

Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP)

Used by a station attached to a specific LAN segment to
advertise its identity and capabilities and to also receive
same from a physically adjacent layer 2 peer
LLDP information sent at a fixed time interval with multicast
mac address
Information gathered

System name and description

Port name and description
VLAN name
IP management address
System capabilities (switching, routing, etc.)
MAC/PHY information
MDI power
Link aggregation

LLDP Frame Format

Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN)

Groups of ports or users in same broadcast domain,
regardless of their physical location
Based on port ID, MAC address, protocol or application
LAN switches and network management software provide a
mechanism to create VLANs and segments the network in
broadcast domains
Several VLANs on a single switch, and a VLAN can span
multiple switches
Frame tagged with VLAN ID

VLAN Frame Format

TPID (Tag Protocol Identifier)

0x8100 for VLAN

TCI (Tag Control Information) PCP/DEI/VID

PCP (Priority Code Point)
3 bit field refers to class of service (voice, video, data, etc)

DEI (Drop Eligible Indicator)

1 bit field , frames eligible to be dropped in the presence of congestion

VID (VLAN Identifier)

12 bit field, supports upto 4K VLANs

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

To prevent network loops
To introduce redundancy in the link connections (if one link
fails, the data is still routed through a different link/route)

STP/RSTP/MSTP

Electing the root

Link costs
BPDU Messages (Bridge Protocol Data Units)
Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP)
Network reconfiguration in ~5 seconds
Discarding - Does not accept/ forward any data but listens to BPDU
messages
Learning - Once the network topology change is detected/ activation
request comes via the BPDU message and filtering/ forwarding table
creation is initiated
Forwarding - RTSP ports start accepting and forwarding data packets/
frames

Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP)

Load balancing in networks

RSTP BPDU Format

Thank You!!!