FRAGMENTATION

- An Internetworking concept
What is fragmentation?

Splitting up things into smaller more

manageable entities for incorporating
ease in use and flexibility in transport.

Where could it possibly

come in Networks ?
Each n/w imposes some maximum
size on its packets, the reason being;
 Hardware (frame size)
 Operating System (buffers size 512 bytes)
 Protocols (no. of bits in packet length field)
 Compliance with some standard
 To reduce error-induced retransmission to
some level
 Prevent packet from choking channel
Problems

 A large packet wants to travel through

a network whose maximum packet
size is small.
 What if the original source packet is
too large to be handled by the
destination network?
 Routing algorithms to prevent such
situation (not applicable)
Fragmentation in networks

 Allow gateways to break up packets

into fragments, sending each packet
as a separate internet packet
 Breaking up a thing is easy, but fixing
it back is not that easy
Types of fragmentation

 Transparent
 Non transparent
Transparent Fragmentation
 Caused by a “small packet” network
transparent to any subsequent networks
through which the packet may pass on its
way to the destination
 Gateways fragment oversized packets,
each addressed to the same exit gateway,
where they are recombined
 The process carries on until destination is
reached
Problems

 Exit gateway should know that it has

received all fragments to start
combination sequence
 All packets must exit via the same
gateway, else data loss occurs
 Overhead required to fragment and
reassemble at each gateway
Non transparent Fragmentation

 Refrain from recombining fragments

at intermediate gateways
 Fragments are considered as packets
and are passed through the gateways
 Recombination occurs only at the
destination host
 IP follows this methodology
Problems

 Requires all hosts to do Reassembly

 Increases overhead, larger the
packet, more the headers
 An advantage being multiple exit
gateways can be employed increasing
the efficiency of the transmission
Schemes
 Fragments should be numbered in a way
that aids recombination
 Trees can be used
 0 can be split as 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 …..
 These can be again fragmented as 0.0.0,
0.0.1, 0.0.2, …….., 0.1.0, 0.1.1 etc.
 Only if enough space is reserved in header
such terminology can be employed
 Sufficient to reorder fragments
THANK YOU