Question 1
Difference between packet switching and circuit switching
Circuit Switching
Physical path between source and destination
All packets use same path
Reserve the entire bandwidth in advance
No store and forward transmission
Suitable for bulk data transfer
Take time in establishing the connection
No alternative route is possible in case of connection failure
Charge is based on distance and time but not on data
Used for telephone conversation
Advantages
Fixed delays, because of the dedicated circuit
Guaranteed continuous service, also because of the dedicated circuit
Circuit is dedicated to the call no interference, no sharing
Disadvantages
idle circuits are not used
Difficult to support variable data rates and is not efficient for burst
traffic .
It takes a relatively long time to set up the circuit
Packet Switching
No physical Path
Packet travel independently
Does not reserve
No bandwidth wastage
Support store and forward transmission
Not suitable
No delay in establishing a connection
Alternate routing of packets is possible
Charge is based on data
Is used by the internet
Advantages
can provide variable data rates
better for "bursty" traffic
High data transmission quality because the data distribution is
checked and error detection is employed during data transmission
Disadvantages
Packets arriving in wrong order and Variable delays
Packets may be lost on their route
Switching nodes requires more processing power and require large
amount of RAM
Question 2
Processes of the OSI transport layer
The transport layer provides:
Message segmentation: accepts a message from the (session) layer
above it, splits the message into smaller units (if not already small
enough), and passes the smaller units down to the network layer. The
transport layer at the destination station reassembles the message.
Message acknowledgment: provides reliable end-to-end message
delivery with acknowledgments.
Message traffic control: tells the transmitting station to "back-off" once
no message buffers space unit out there.
Session multiplexing: multiplexes several message streams, or
sessions onto one logical link and keeps track of that messages belong
to which sessions.
Question 3
How the IP layer keep the packets from getting misplaced
Sender level: The IP adds a header of control information to each
segment received from the TCP in order to form the IP datagram or IP
packet. The data can be fragmented to smaller packets if necessary.
Router level: And indicates the order in the fragment offset field of
the header. Then it is passed down to the network access layer.
Receiver level: Upon receipt the IP layer at destination will use the
fragment offset for reassembly