Network Layer

Unit - III

Design Issues
Store-and-Forward Packet Switching:

packet is stored until it has fully arrived and the link has
finished its processing by verifying the checksum.
Then it is forwarded to the next router along the path
until it reaches the destination host, where it is delivered

Design Issues
Services Provided to the Transport
Layer:
Goals:
The services should be independent of the
router technology
The transport layer should be shielded from the
number, type, and topology of the routers
present
The network addresses made available to the
transport layer should use a uniform numbering
plan, even across LANs and WANs

Design Issues
(Argue1): moving packets around and
nothing else
Therefore, the hosts should accept this fact and
do error control (i.e., error detection and
correction) and flow control themselves
(end-to-end argument)

(Argue2): network should provide a

reliable, connection-oriented service
quality of service is the dominant factor

Design Issues
Implementation of Connectionless Service:
If connectionless service is offered, packets are
injected into the network individually and
routed independently of each other.
packets are frequently called datagrams and
the network is called a datagram network
If connection-oriented service is used, a path
from the source router all the way to the
destination router must be established before
any data packets can be sent. This connection
is called a VC (virtual circuit)

Design Issues
algorithm that manages the tables and makes the
routing decisions is called the routing algorithm

Design Issues
Implementation of Connection-Oriented
Service
idea behind virtual circuits is to avoid having to
choose a new route for every packet sent
a route from the source machine to the
destination machine is chosen as part of the
connection setup and stored in tables inside
the routers
each packet carries an identifier telling which
virtual circuit it belongs to.

Design Issues
process is called label switching
example of a connection-oriented network service
is MPLS (MultiProtocol Label Switching).

Design Issues

Comparison of Virtual-Circuit and Datagram Networks

VC setup time, addresses used for datagrams, amount of table space,

quality of service and avoiding congestion, VCs vulnerability problem

Routing Algorithms
Unit - III

Routing Algorithm
Routing Algorithm: part of the network layer software responsible
for deciding which output line an incoming packet should be
transmitted on
Session routing: data packets just follow the already established
route; a route remains in force for an entire session
Forwarding: handles each packet as it arrives, looking up the
outgoing line to use for it in the routing tables
Properties that are desirable in a routing algorithm:
correctness, simplicity, robustness, stability, fairness, and
efficiency
Routing algorithms can be grouped into two major classes:
nonadaptive and adaptive.

Routing Algorithm

Nonadaptive algorithms:
do not base their routing decisions on any measurements or
estimates of the current topology and traffic
Choice of the route to use to get from I to J (for all I and J) is
computed in advance, offline, and downloaded to the routers when
the network is booted (also know as static routing)
Adaptive algorithms:
change their routing decisions to reflect changes in the topology,
and sometimes changes in the traffic
dynamic routing algorithms differ in
where they get their information (e.g., locally, from adjacent
routers, or from all routers),
when they change the routes (e.g., when the topology changes, or
every T seconds as the load changes), and
what metric is used for optimization (e.g., distance, number of
hops, or estimated transit time).

Routing Algorithm
optimality principle: a general statement about optimal
routes without regard to network topology or traffic
Allowing all of the possible paths to be chosen, the tree
becomes a more general structure called a DAG (Directed
Acyclic Graph) and DAGs have no loops.
(a) A network.

(b) A sink tree for router B

Shortest Path Algorithm

The idea is
to build a graph of the network,
with each node of the graph representing a router
and
each edge of the graph representing a
communication line, or link
To choose a route between a given pair of routers,
the algorithm just finds the shortest path between
them on the graph.

One way of measuring path length is the

number of hops
Another metric is the geographic distance in
kilometers

Shortest Path Algorithm

Shortest Path Algorithm

labels on the edges could be computed as a function
of the distance, bandwidth, average traffic,
communication cost, measured delay, and other
factors.
Dijkstra:
shortest paths between a source and all destinations
Each node is labeled with its distance
Initially, no paths are known, so all nodes are labeled
with infinity
As the algorithm proceeds and paths are found, the
labels may change, reflecting better paths
label may be either tentative or permanent
When it is discovered, it is made permanent

Dijkstra:
1. Assign to every node a tentative distance value: set it to zero for our initial node and to
infinity for all other nodes.
2. Mark all nodes unvisited. Set the initial node as current. Create a set of the unvisited
nodes called the unvisited set consisting of all the nodes.
3. For the current node, consider all of its unvisited neighbors and calculate
their tentative distances. Compare the newly calculated tentative distance to the current
assigned value and assign the smaller one. For example, if the current node A is marked
with a distance of 6, and the edge connecting it with a neighbor B has length 2, then the
distance to B (through A) will be 6 + 2 = 8. If B was previously marked with a distance
greater than 8 then change it to 8. Otherwise, keep the current value.
4. When we are done considering all of the neighbors of the current node, mark the
current node as visited and remove it from the unvisited set. A visited node will never be
checked again.
5. If the destination node has been marked visited (when planning a route between two
specific nodes) or if the smallest tentative distance among the nodes in the unvisited
set is infinity (when planning a complete traversal; occurs when there is no connection
between the initial node and remaining unvisited nodes), then stop. The algorithm has
finished.
6. Select the unvisited node that is marked with the smallest tentative distance, and set it
as the new "current node" then go back to step 3.

Source: Wikipedia

Dijkstras Algorithm
#define MAX NODES 1024 /* maximum number of nodes
*/
#define INFINITY 1000000000 /* a number larger than
every maximum path */
int n, dist[MAX NODES][MAX NODES]; /* dist[i][j] is
the distance from i to j */
void shortest path(int s, int t, int path[])
{
struct state { /* the path being worked on */
int predecessor; /* previous node */
int length; /* length from source to this node */
enum {permanent, tentative} label; /* label state
*/
} state[MAX NODES];

Dijkstras Algorithm
int i, k, min;
struct state *p;
for (p = &state[0]; p < &state[n]; p++) { /*
initialize state */
p->predecessor = 1;
p->length = INFINITY;
p->label = tentative;
}
state[t].length = 0; state[t].label = permanent;
k = t; /* k is the initial working node */
do { /* Is there a better path from k? */
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) /* this graph has n nodes */
if (dist[k][i] != 0 && state[i].label == tentative) {
if (state[k].length + dist[k][i] < state[i].length) {
state[i].predecessor = k;
state[i].length = state[k].length + dist[k][i];
}
}

Dijkstras Algorithm
/* Find the tentatively labeled node with the
smallest label. */
k = 0; min = INFINITY;
for (i = 0; i < n; i++)
if (state[i].label == tentative && state[i].length <
min) {
min = state[i].length;
k = i;
}
state[k].label = permanent;
} while (k != s);
/* Copy the path into the output array. */
i = 0; k = s;
do {path[i++] = k; k = state[k].predecessor; } while
(k >= 0);
}

Flooding
Each router must make decisions based on local
knowledge, not the complete picture of the network
Flooding: every incoming packet is sent out on
every outgoing line except the one it arrived on
One measure is to have a hop counter
hop counter should be initialized to the length of the
path from source to destination and decremented
If the sender does not know how long the path is, it
can initialize the counter to the worst case
Routers keep track of which packets have been
flooded, to avoid sending them out a second time
source router put a sequence number in each packet

Flooding
Flooding is not practical, but it does have some
important uses:
it ensures that a packet is delivered to every node
wasteful if there is a single destination but effective
for broadcasting information
tremendously robust
routers only need to know their neighbors
Flooding can also be used as a metric against which
other routing algorithms can be compared
Flooding always chooses the shortest path because
it chooses every possible path in parallel

Distance Vector Routing

Also known as distributed Bellman-Ford routing algorithm
It was the original ARPANET routing algorithm and was also
used in the Internet under the name RIP
DVR Algorithm operates by having each router maintain a
table (i.e., a vector) giving the best known distance to each
destination and which link to use to get there
These tables are updated by exchanging information with the
neighbors
Entry in the table has two parts:
the preferred outgoing line to use for that destination and
an estimate of the distance to that destination.

Distance Vector Routing

Router is assumed to know the distance to each of
its neighbors
If the metric is hops, the distance is just one hop.
If the metric is propagation delay, the router can
measure by ECHO packets(receiver timestamps and
sends back)

Ex. Assuming delay is used as a metric and that the

router knows the delay to each of its neighbors
Once every T msec, each router sends to each neighbor a
list of its estimated delays to each destination
Imagine, one of these tables has just come in from
neighbor X, with Xi being Xs estimate of how long it
takes to get to router i.

Distance Vector Routing

If the router knows that the delay to X is m msec, it
also knows that it can reach router i via X in Xi + m
msec
By performing this calculation for each neighbor, a
router can find out which estimate seems the best
and use that estimate
old routing table is not used in the calculation
Consider how J computes its new route to router G
it computes the delay to G via I, H, and K as 41 (31 + 10),
18 (6 + 12), and 37 (31 + 6) msec, respectively
best of these values is 18; so it makes an entry in its
routing table that the delay to G is 18 msec and that the
route to use is via H.

Distance Vector Routing

Part (a) shows a network. The first four columns of part (b) show
the delay vectors received from the neighbors of router J

Distance Vector Routing

The Count-to-Infinity Problem:
settling of routes to best paths across the network is called
convergence
Drawback: reacts rapidly to good news, but leisurely to bad news
When A comes up, the other routers learn about it via the vector
exchanges
When the nodes goes off, information exchange goes slowly
within N exchanges everyone will know about newly revived links
and routers

Link State Routing

Five parts:
1. Discover its neighbors and learn their network
addresses.
2. Set the distance or cost metric to each of its
neighbors.
3. Construct a packet telling all it has just learned.
4. Send this packet to and receive packets from all
other routers.
5. Compute the shortest path to every other router.
complete topology is distributed to every router
Dijkstras algorithm can be run at each router to find
the shortest path

Link State Routing

Learning about the Neighbors:
by sending a special HELLO packet on each point-to-point
line
router on the other end is expected to send back a reply
When two or more routers are connected by a broadcast link,
situation is slightly more complicated
artificial node, N, to which A, C, and F are connected; possible
to go from A to C on the LAN

(a) Nine routers and a broadcast LAN. (b) A graph model of (a).

Link State Routing

Setting Link Costs:
each link to have a distance or cost metric for
finding shortest paths
make the cost inversely proportional to the
bandwidth of the link
For Ex. 1-Gbps Ethernet may have a cost of 1 and
100-Mbps Ethernet a cost of 10
To determine delay , send over the line a special
ECHO packet and receive a reply
By measuring the round-trip time and dividing it by
two, the sending router can get a reasonable
estimate of the delay

Link State Routing

Building Link State Packets:
packet starts with the identity of the sender, followed by
a sequence number and age and a list of neighbors
build the packets periodically, that is, at regular
intervals

(a) A network. (b) The link state packets for this network

Link State Routing

Distributing the Link State Packets:
routers must get all of the link state packets quickly
and reliably
fundamental idea is to use flooding to distribute the
link state packets to all routers
each packet contains a sequence number and
Routers keep track of all the (source router,
sequence) pairs
Problems:
if the sequence numbers wrap around, confusion will
reign; solution here is to use a 32-bit sequence number
if a router ever crashes, it will lose track of its sequence
number
if a sequence number is ever corrupted

Link State Routing

table records where the packet originated, its
sequence number and age, and the data
If a duplicate arrives while the original is still in
the buffer, bits have to be changed

Link State Routing

Computing the New Routes:
Dijkstras algorithm can be run locally to construct
the shortest paths to all possible destinations
Compared to distance vector routing, link state
routing requires more memory and computation
but link state routing works well because it does
not suffer from slow convergence problems
Many ISPs use the IS-IS (Intermediate SystemIntermediate System) link state protocol
OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) is the other main
link state protocol

Link State Routing

Issues:
rely on processing at all the routers to compute
routes
Problems with the hardware or software
if a router claims to have a link it does not have or
forgets a link it does have, the network graph will
be incorrect
if a router fails to forward packets or corrupts
if it runs out of memory or does the routing
calculation wrong
network grows into the range of tens or hundreds
of thousands of nodes

Hierarchical Routing
Routers are divided into Regions
Router knows how to route packets within its own region
but knows nothing about other regions
For huge networks, a two-level hierarchy may be
insufficient
group the regions into clusters, the clusters into zones, the
zones into groups, and so on

For example, consider a network with 720 routers.

If there is no hierarchy, each router needs 720 routing table entries.
If the network is partitioned into 24 regions of 30 routers each,
each router needs 30 local entries plus 23 remote entries for a total
of 53 entries.
If a three-level hierarchy is chosen, with 8 clusters each containing
9 regions of 10 routers, each router needs 10 entries for local
routers, 8 entries for routing to other regions within its own cluster,
and 7 entries for distant clusters, for a total of 25 entries.

Hierarchical Routing

Broadcast Routing
Sending a packet to all destinations simultaneously is called
broadcasting
source to simply send a distinct packet to each destination wasteful of bandwidth and slow, should know complete list of all
destinations
multidestination routing:
each packet contains either a list of destinations or a bit map
indicating the desired destinations

After a sufficient number of hops, each packet will carry only

one destination like a normal packet
broadcast routing technique: flooding
reverse path forwarding:
When a broadcast packet arrives at a router, the router checks to
see if the packet arrived on the link that is normally used for
sending packets toward the source of the broadcast
the router forwards copies of it onto all links except the one it
arrived on

Broadcast Routing
Reverse path forwarding: (a) A network. (b) A sink tree. (c) The tree
built by reverse path forwarding

Adv.: sends the broadcast packet over each link only once in
each direction, just as in flooding, yet it requires only that
routers know how to reach all destinations, without needing to
remember sequence numbers

Broadcast Routing
spanning tree is a subset of the network that
includes all the routers but contains no loops. Sink
trees are spanning trees
If each router knows which of its lines belong to the
spanning tree, it can copy an incoming broadcast
packet onto all the spanning tree lines except the
one it arrived on
Adv.: excellent use of bandwidth, generating the
absolute minimum number of packets necessary to
do the job
Issue: each router must have knowledge of some
spanning tree for the method to be applicable

Multicast Routing
Sending a message to a group is called multicasting,
and the routing algorithm used is called multicast
routing
create and destroy groups and to identify which routers
are members of a group
build on the broadcast routing schemes - sending
packets along spanning trees to deliver the packets
Each router can then construct its own pruned spanning
tree for each sender
Ex. DVMRP (Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol)
Pruning results in efficient spanning trees that use only
the links that are actually needed to reach members of
the group
Issues: lots of work for routers, especially for large
networks

Multicast Routing
(a) A network. (b) A spanning tree for the leftmost router.
(c) A multicast tree for group 1. (d) A multicast tree for group 2.

Multicast Routing
alternative design: core-based trees to compute a single spanning
tree for the group
All of the routers agree on a root (core) and build the tree by
sending a packet from each member to the root
The tree is the union of the paths traced by these packets
When the packet reaches the core, it is forwarded down the tree.
The inefficiency depends on where the core and senders are located,
but often it is reasonable when the core is in the middle of the
senders
Ex. PIM (Protocol Independent Multicast)

(a) Core-based tree for

group 1.
(b)Sending to group 1.

Anycast Routing
Anycast: A packet is delivered to the nearest member of
a group
to anycast to the members of group 1 - all be given the
address 1, instead of different addresses
DVR distribute vectors as usual, and nodes will choose
the shortest path to destination 1
(a) Anycast routes to
group 1.
(b) Topology seen by
the routing
protocol

Routing for Mobile Hosts

Mobile Host a device can move and change its point of
attachment
Home location device is a permanent member of the
location
Home address permanent address assigned to the
device
Home agent knows location of mobile device during
devices absence and forwards packets to the new
location
Care of address a temporary address received from the
network where the mobile device is roaming now
Tunneling agent encapsulates the address (wraps up)
with the new care of address
Triangle routing routing from communicating node to
home agent and from home agent to mobile device

Routing for Mobile Hosts

Packet routing for mobile hosts.

Routing in Ad Hoc Networks

ad hoc networks or MANETs (Mobile Ad
hoc NETworks)
communicates wirelessly and acts as both a
host and a router and happen to be near each
other
topology may be changing all the time

AODV (Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector)

Relative of distance vector algorithm
nodes often have limited bandwidth and battery
lifetimes

Routing in Ad Hoc Networks

Route Discovery:
routes to a destination are discovered on
demand
topology of an ad hoc network can be described
by a graph of connected nodes.
Possible scenario: A is connected to B but B is
not connected to A because A has a more
powerful transmitter than B
AODV algorithm maintains a distance vector
table at each node

Routing in Ad Hoc Networks

(a) Range of As broadcast. (b) After B and D receive
it. (c) After C, F, and G receive it. (d) After E, H, and I
receive it. The shaded nodes are new recipients. The
dashed lines show possible reverse routes. The solid
lines show the discovered route

Routing in Ad Hoc Networks

How it works (from the above figure)
A wants to send a packet to node I
A looks in its table and does not find an entry for I; has to
discover a route to I
A constructs a ROUTE REQUEST packet and broadcasts it
transmission from A reaches B and D
Each node rebroadcasts the request, continues to reach nodes F,
G, and C, and nodes H, E, and I
D discards the transmission from B because of duplicates
request reaches node I, which constructs a ROUTE REPLY
This packet is unicast to the sender along the reverse of the path
each intermediate node must remember the node that sent it the
request and hop count
Intermediate nodes G and D put the best route they hear into
their routing tables
a new route, ADGI, has been created

Routing in Ad Hoc Networks

To reduce overhead, the scope of the broadcasts is
limited using the IP packets Time to live field
This field is initialized by the sender and
decremented on each hop
If it hits 0, the packet is discarded instead of being
broadcast.
To locate a destination, the sender broadcasts a
ROUTE REQUEST packet with Time to live set to 1.
If no response comes back within a reasonable
time, another one is sent, this time with Time to live
set to 2.
Subsequent attempts use 3, 4, 5, etc

Routing in Ad Hoc Networks

Route Maintenance:
Because nodes can move or be switched off, the topology
can change spontaneously
Periodically, each node broadcasts a Hello message
Each neighbors is expected to respond to it
If no response is forthcoming, the broadcaster knows that
that neighbor has moved out of range or failed and is no
longer connected to it
This information is used to purge routes that no longer
work
For each possible destination, each node, N, keeps track of
its active neighbors that have fed it a packet for that
destination during the last T seconds
Active neighbors are informed that their route via N is
now invalid and must be purged from their routing tables

Routing in Ad Hoc Networks

invalid routes have been purged from the network,
and senders can find new, valid routes by using the
discovery mechanism
routes include a sequence number that is controlled
by the destination
destination increments it every time that it sends a
fresh ROUTE REPLY
Senders ask for a fresh route by including in the
ROUTE REQUEST the destination sequence
number of the last route they used, which will
either be the sequence number of the route that
was just purged, or 0 as an initial value

Routing in Ad Hoc Networks

intermediate nodes only store the routes that are in
use.
Other route information learned during broadcasts
is timed out after a short delay.
Discovering and storing only the routes that are
used helps to save bandwidth and battery life
compared to a standard distance vector protocol
that periodically broadcasts updates
route discovery and maintenance are shared when
routes overlap
many other ad hoc routing schemes: DSR (Dynamic
Source Routing), GPSR (Greedy Perimeter Stateless
Routing)