Introduction

In the preceding lesson we have seen that high-speed LANs have emerged broadly into three types – based on token passing, successors of Ethernet and based on switching technology. we have discussed FDDI and its variations in the preceding lesson. In the second category we have the fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet. In the third category we have ATM, fiber channel and the Ether switches. In this lesson we shall discuss the second and the third categories of LANs starting with successors of Ethernet.

Successors of Ethernet

On a regular Ethernet segment, all stations share the available bandwidth of 10 Mb/s. With the increase in traffic, the number of packet collisions goes up, lowering the overall throughput. In such a scenario, there are two basic approaches to increase the bandwidth.

One is to replace the Ethernet with a higher speed version of Ethernet. Use of Fast Ethernet operating at 100 Mb/s and Gigabit Ethernet operating at 1000 Mb/s belong to this category. This approach requires replacement of the old network interface cards (NICs) in each station by new ones.

The other approach is to use Ethernet switches (let us call it switched Ethernet approach) that use a high-speed internal bus to switch packets between multiple (8 to 32) cable segments and offer dedicated 10 Mb/s bandwidth on each segment/ports. In this approach, there is no need to replace the NICs; replacement of the hub by a switch serves the purpose. This approach is discussed in the following section.

Switched Ethernet

Switched Ethernet gives dedicated 10 Mb/s bandwidth on each of its ports. On each of the ports one can connect either a thick/thin segment or a computer.

In Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) the topology, though physically is star but logically is BUS, i.e. the collision domain of all the nodes in a LAN is common. In this situation only one station can send the frame. If more than one station sends the frame, there is a collision. A comparison between the two is shown in Fig.

In Switched Ethernet, the collision domain is separated. The hub is replaced by a switch, which functions as a fast bridge. It can recognize the destination address of the received frame and can forward the frame to the port to which the destination station is connected. The other ports are not involved in the transmission process. The switch can receive another frame from another station at the same time and can route this frame to its own final destination. In this case, both the physical and logical topologies are star.

                       Figure ; Difference Between 802.3 and Switched LAN

There are two possible forwarding techniques that can be used in the implementation of Ethernet switches: store-and-forward and cut-through. In the first case, the entire frame is captured at the incoming port, stored in the switch’s memory, and after an address lookup to determine the LAN destination port, forwarded to the appropriate port. The lookup table is automatically built up. On the other hand, a cut-through switch begins to transmit the frame to the destination port as soon as it decodes the destination address from the frame header.

Store-and-forward approach provides a greater level of error detection because damaged frames are not forwarded to the destination port. But, it introduces longer delay of about 1.2 msec for forwarding a frame and suffers from the chance of losing data due to reliance on buffer memory. The cut-through switches, on the other hand, has reduced latency but has higher switch cost.

The throughput can be further increased on switched Ethernet by using fullduplex technique, which uses separate wire pairs for transmitting and receiving. Thus a station can transmit and receive simultaneously, effectively doubling the throughput to 20 Mb/s on each port.

Fast Ethernet

The 802.u or the fast Ethernet, as it is commonly known, was approved by the IEEE 802 Committee in June 1995. It may not be considered as a new standard but an addendum to the existing 802.3 standard. The fast Ethernet uses the same frame format, same CSMA/CD protocol and same interface as the 802.3, but uses a data transfer rate of 100 Mb/s instead of 10 Mb/s. However, fast Ethernet is based entirely on 10-Base-T, because of its advantages (Although technically 10-BASE-5 or 10-BASE-2 can be used with shorter segment length).

Fortunately, the Ethernet is designed in such a way that the speed can be increased if collision domain is decreased. The only two changes made in the MAC layer are the data rate and the collision domain. The data rate is increased by a factor of 10 and collision domain is decreased by a factor of 10. To increase the data rate without changing the minimum size of the frame (576 bits or 76 bytes in IEEE 802.3), it is necessary to decrease the round-trip delay time. With the speed of 100Mbps the roundtrip time reduce to 5.76 microseconds (576 bits/100 Mbps; which was 57.6 microsecond for 10Mbps Normal Ethernet).

This means that the collision domain is decreased 10-fold from 2500 meters (in IEEE802.3) to 250 meters (fast Ethernet). IEEE has designed two categories of Fast Ethernet: 100Base-X and 100Base-T4. 100Base-X uses two-wire interface between a hub and a station while 100Base-T4 uses four-wire interface. 100-Base-X itself is divided into two: 100Base-TX and 100base-FX as shown in Fig.