Tutorial 03

1) Explain the concepts of recirculating and deflection routing in space division

switches.

2) What are space division switches?

3) Show the differences between Omega and Delta switches.

4) Describe the Delta Network switching in ATMs with an 8x8 switch.

5) Show the how a cell heading for output port 4 will move through the switch
once from input port 1 and once from input port 6.

6) In a Banyan switch, what is meant by output port contention?

7) Describe the Batcher-banyan approach in dealing with output port

contention.

8) What are the advantages of point-to-point over multipoint connectivity?

And what are advantages of multipoint over point-to-point connectivity?

9) Outline seven differences between virtual circuit switching and datagram

switching techniques.
1) Explain the concepts of recirculating and deflection routing in space division switches.

Recirculation

– a cell that cannot be transmitted on its desired path or port right

now is sent back to the input ports using a recirculation line to try
again in the next time slot (with higher priority)
– hopefully will get through next time

Deflection routing

– a cell that cannot be transmitted on its desired path or port right

now is sent out “another” (available) port instead, in the hope that it
will find an alternate path to its destination
– example: tandem banyan

2) What are space division switches?

1. Space-division switches: all cells pass through the switch at the same time, but do so on
different paths
2. Space division switches provide multiple concurrent paths from the input ports to the output
ports
3. Cells coming in on different input ports and heading to different output ports can proceed
through the switch simultaneously on these separate paths, without interfering with each other
4. There are many examples of space division switches
5. Crossbar switches
6. Multistage interconnection networks (MINs)
o Banyan, Batcher-Banyan, Benes
o delta, omega, perfect shuffle
3) Show the differences between Omega and Delta switches.

Delta network switch Omega network switch

4) Describe the Delta Network switching in ATMs with an 8x8 switch.

• Delta network has self-routing property

• The path for a cell to take to reach its destination can be determined directly from its routing tag
(i.e., destination port id)
• Stage k of the MIN looks at bit k of the tag
• If bit k is 0, then send cell out upper port
• If bit k is 1, then send cell out lower port
Works for every possible input port
5) Show the how a cell heading for output port 4 will move through the switch once from input
port 1 and once from input port 6.

6) In a Banyan switch, what is meant by output port contention?

• output port contention happens if more than one cell destined to same output port?
• Result: cell loss in a bufferless network

7) Describe the Batcher-banyan approach in dealing with output port contention.

Banyan batching:

• sort the cells into monotonically increasing order based on desired destination port
• Done using a bitonic sorter called a Batcher
• Places the M cells into gap-free increasing sequence on the first M input ports
• Eliminates duplicate destinations

8) What are the advantages of point-to-point over multipoint connectivity? And what are
advantages of multipoint over point-to-point connectivity?

Advantages of point-to-point over the multipoint:

1. Faster data transfer (dedicated lines)
2. No latency,
3. No collisions
4. No channel access overheads.
5. Robust
6. Easier to isolate faults
7. Easier to add or remove a node without bringing the network down.
8. No single point of failure.
 Advantages of multipoint over the point-to-point:
1. The only method for connecting large number of devices.
2. Less cabling is used therefore less cost.
3. more suited for broadcast
4. channels are used more efficiently.
5. scales better to a larger network
6. simple to install.

9) Outline seven differences between virtual circuit switching and datagram

switching techniques.
Virtual circuit switched technique: Packet Datagram technique:

1) A call set up is required before data is sent t 1) No call setup is required

2) Route is established once at call setup and is 2) Route for each packet is determined
kept in virtual circuit table. independently of others. Each router checks its
routing table where to send each packet.
3) Just forward data packets to nearest router or
3) Consists of call setup, data transfer and call gateway
clear phases. 4) A call is never refused or blocked
4) A call may be refused or blocked 5) Packets may follow same or different routes
5) All packets follows the same route. 6) Packets may arrive out of sequence.
6) Data is likely to arrive in sequence. 7) Robust. Path is more flexible. Packets will be
7) Not robust. If a link or a node along the route re-routed in case of a link failure.
fails the entire call is lost a new call needs to
be established.
8) Slower for short messages as a call setup is 8) It is faster than circuit switching for small
required. amounts of data as no call setup is involved.
9) Quality of service is guaranteed. 9) QoS cannot be guaranteed.
10) Acknowledgement and error detection is built 10) No acknowledgement and no error detection
in.
11) Not suitable for advertising.
12) Requires more powerful & more expensive 11) More suited for advertising.
devices 12) Requires less powerful & cheaper devices
13) More expensive to run as there’s limit on the
nuber of users.
14) Less flexible with the route once established 13) Cheaper to run as there is no limit on number
15) Smaller headers for data packets. No need for of users,
IP addresses. 14) More flexible with the route (changeable).
15) Larger headers in packets holding IP source
and destination addresses