CSE-451 COMPUTER NETWORKS AND COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS

SESSIONAL 02 DATE: 27-OCT-2014 MAX MARKS: 20 DURATION: 1 HOUR

Note: All questions are compulsory. The first 5 questions carry 1 Mark each.
1. In flooding algorithm, if the sender is not aware of the path length, it can initialize the counter to the worst case,
i.e. to the ___________ of the subnet.
(a) partial length
(b) number of hops
(c) full diameter
(d) half-diameter
2. The ______________ is the central concept of detecting or correcting errors.
(a) bit stuffing
(b) Redundancy
(c) byte stuffing

(d) coding scheme

3. To correct 2 errors in a data unit of the same size, we need to consider _________ possibilities.
(a) 4
(b) 8
(c) 16
(d) 28
4. The ______ provides one single data link control protocol for all IEEE LANs.
(a) MAC
(b) LLC
(c) ATM
(d) Frame Relay
5. In 802.3 MAC frame, the Preamble consists of _________ bits of alternating 1s and 0s.
(a) 28
(b) 32
(c) 56
(d) 64

6. (a) Explain the facilities provided by a LAN as a back-end network.

(b) Explain the functionality of a bridge along with its major applications.

7. (a)

Explain the algorithm Preallocation of Buffers in congestion control.

(b) With an example illustrate the contents of a routing table.

[3 M]
[2 M]

[3 M]
[2 M]

8. (a) Explain the IEEE 802.3 MAC Frame structure for LAN

[3 M]

(b) Write about the 4 types of services provided by ATM.

[2 M]

CSE-451 COMPUTER NETWORKS AND COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS

SESSIONAL 02 DATE: 27-OCT-2014 MAX MARKS: 20 DURATION: 1 HOUR
SCHEME OF EVALUATION
Note: All questions are compulsory. The first 5 questions carry 1 Mark each.
1. In flooding algorithm, if the sender is not aware of the path length, it can initialize the counter to the worst case,
i.e. to the ___________ of the subnet.
(a) partial length

(b) number of hops

(c) full diameter

(d) half-diameter

2. The ______________ is the central concept of detecting or correcting errors.

(a) bit stuffing

(b) Redundancy

(c) byte stuffing

(d) coding scheme

3. To correct 2 errors in a data unit of the same size, we need to consider _________ possibilities.
(a) 4

(b) 8

(c) 16

(d) 28

4. The ______ provides one single data link control protocol for all IEEE LANs.
(a) MAC

(b) LLC

(c) ATM

(d) Frame Relay

5. In 802.3 MAC frame, the Preamble consists of 56 bits of alternating 1s and 0s.

6.

(a) 28

(b) 32

(a)

Explain

(c) 56

the

(d) 64

facilities

provided

by

LAN

as

back-end

network.

[3 M]
Ans: The features of Personal computer LANs are: low cost and limited data rate.

The facilities provided by LANs as back end networks are stated below:
interconnecting large systems (mainframes and large storage devices)

high data rate

high speed interface

distributed access

limited distance

limited number of devices

(b) Explain the functionality of a bridge along with its major applications.
Ans: connects similar LANs
identical physical / link layer protocols

[2 M]

 minimal processing
can map between MAC formats
reasons for use:
reliability
performance
security
geography

7. (a)

Explain the algorithm Preallocation of Buffers in congestion control.

[3 M]

Ans: Preallocation of buffers.

If VCs are used in the subnet, it is possible to solve the congestion problem altogether as:
When a VC is set up, the call request packet wends its way through the subnet, making table entries as it
goes.
When it has arrived at the destination, the route to be followed by all subsequent data traffic has been
determined and entries made in the Routing tables of all intermediate IMPs.
Normally the call request packet does not reserve any buffer space in the IMPs, just time slots.
However, a simple modification to the set up algorithm could have: Each call request packet reserves
one or more data buffers as well.
If a call request packet arrives at an IMP and all the buffers are already reserved, either another route must
be found or a busy signal must be returned to the caller.
Even if buffers are not reserved, some aspiring VCs may have to be rerouted or rejected for lack of table
space, so reserving buffers does not add any new problems that were not already there.
By permanently allocating buffers to each VC in each IMP, there will always be a place to store any
incoming packet until it can be forwarded.
First, consider the case of a stop-and-wait-IMP-IMP protocol.
One buffer per VC per IMP is sufficient for simplex circuits and one for each direction is sufficient for
full-duplex circuits.
When a packet arrives, the ACK is not sent back to the sending IMP until the packet has been forwarded.
In effect, an ACK means that the receiver not only received the packet correctly, but also that it has a free
buffer and is willing to accept another one.
If the IMP-IMP protocol allows multiple outstanding packets, each IMP will have to dedicate a full
windows worth of buffers to each VC to completely eliminate the possibility of congestion.
When each VC passing through each IMP has sufficient buffer space dedicated to it, packet switching
becomes quite similar to circuit switching.

In both cases an involved setup procedure is required.

In both cases substantial resources are permanently allocated to specific connections, whether or not there
is any traffic.
In both cases congestion is impossible because all the resources needed to process the traffic have already
been reserved.
And in both cases there is a potentially inefficient use of resources because resources are not being used
by the connection to which they are allocated are nevertheless available to anyone else.

(b) With an example illustrate the contents of a routing table.

[2 M]

Ans:

8. (a) Explain the IEEE 802.3 MAC Frame structure for LAN
Ans:

[3 M]

The frame begins with a 7-octet preamble that repeats the octet 10101010.
This pattern produces a square wave that allows the receivers to synchronize to the beginning of the
frame.
The preamble is followed by the start frame delimiter that consists of the pattern 10101011.
The 2 consecutive ones in the delimiter indicate the start of the frame.
The destination and source address fields follow.
The address fields are 6-bytes long. (2-byte address fields are defined but not used).
The first bit of the destination address distinguishes between single address and group address that are
used to multicast a frame to a group of users.
The next bit indicates whether the address is a local address or global address.
Thus in the case of 6-byte addresses, the standard provides for 246 global addresses.
The first 3-bytes specify the NIC vendor, so this scheme allows up to 224 = 16, 777, 215 addresses per
vendor.
There are 3 types of physical addresses:
1. Unicast: These are the unique addresses permanently assigned to NIC Card. The card normally
matches transmissions against this address to identify frames destined to it.
2. Multicast Addresses: Identify a group of stations that are receive a given frame. NIC cards are set by
their host computer to accept specific multicast addresses. Mulitcasting is an efficient way of distributing
information in situations where multiple entities or processes require a piece of information, as, for
example, in the spanning tree algorithm.

3. Broadcast Addresses: Indicated by all 1s physical address, indicates that all stations are to receive a
given packet.
Length Field: Indicates the number of bytes in the information field.
The longest allowable 802.3 frame is 1518 bytes, including the 18-byte overhead but excluding the
preamble and SD.
Pad Field: Ensures that the frame size is at least 64 bytes long.
The CRC field covers the address, length information, and pad fields. Upon receiving a frame, the NIC
card checks to see that if the frame is of acceptable length and then checks the received CRC for errors. If
errors are detected, the frame is discarded and not passed to the Network Layer.

(b) Write about the 4 types of services provided by ATM.

Ans: Overview of ATM

Used in both WAN and LAN settings

Signaling (connection setup) Protocol:

Packets are called cells (53 bytes)

5-byte header + 48-byte payload

Commonly transmitted over SONET

other physical layers possible

Connections can be switched (SVC), or permanent (PVC).

ATM operates on a best effort basis.

ATM guarantees that cells will not be disordered.

Two types of connections:

Point-to-point

Multipoint (Multicast)

Four Types of Services:

CBR (Constant Bit Rate)

VBR (Variable Bit Rate)

ABR (Available Bit Rate) Flow Control, Rate-based, Credit- based

UBR (Unspecific Bit Rate) No Flow control.

[2 M]