COMPUTER NETWORK

MODELS

ECE 422 – DATA COMMUNICATION & COMPUTER NETWORKS

Monday, 17 February 2025

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 WHAT IS A COMPUTER NETWORK?

1. A Computer network is a combination

of hardware and software that sends
data from one location to another.
2. A Computer Network consists of:

a) Hardware, i.e the physical equipment that

carries signals from one point of the
network to another.

b) Software i.e a set of instructions that make

possible for human beings to get services
from the network.

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USE OF LAYERS IN ORDINARY LIFE

This is layer requires

imagination, writing
and interpretation –
Tasks which can only
be done by man.

This layer carries

intelligence which is
wrapped up in an
envelope- Tasks
which can be
automated.
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 RECAP: LEVELS IN COMPUTER PROGRAMMING
Programming languages can be broadly classified into three
categories, i.e Machine languages, Assembly languages and
application languages.
Machine Languages Each unique CPU has a unique machine
language made up of a series of binary patterns (e.g., 01011100)
which represent simple operations that can be accomplished by the
computer (e.g., add two operands, move data to a memory
location). Machine language programs are executable, meaning
that they can be run directly.
Assembly Languages: Instructions are replaced with simple
pneumonic abbreviations (e.g., ADD, MOV). Assembly languages
are unique to a specific computer (machine). Prior to execution, an
assembly language program requires translation to machine
language.
High Level Languages: are more English-like and, therefore, make it
easier for programmers to “think” in the programming language.
High-level languages use a compiler or an interpreter. Compilers
translate the entire source code program before execution.(Eg: C++,
Java). Interpreters translate source code programs one line at a 4
time.
 HISTORY OF ISO

1. ISO began in 1926 as the International Federation of the National

Standardizing Associations (ISA).
2. In its early years, ISO focused heavily on mechanical engineering.
3. It was disbanded in 1942 during the second World War but was re-
organized under the current name, ISO, in 1946.
4. The name, "ISO" is not an acronym but was derived from the Greek
word "isos" meaning "equal".
5. The use of ISO (isos) eliminated confusion that could result from
the translation of "International Organization for Standardization in
many languages.

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 MEMBERSHIP OF ISO

1. ISO is a voluntary organization whose members are

recognized standard authorities, each one representing
one country.
2. Kenya Bureau of Standards is Kenya’s national
representative to ISO.
3. American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is the
United States representative to ISO.
4. The bulk of the work of ISO is done by the 2700
technical committees, subcommittees and working
groups.
5. Each committee and subcommittee is headed by a
Secretariat. 6
 ISO STANDARD APPROVAL PROCESS

A standard goes through a six stage process before being published as an ISO standard
as follows:
1. Proposal stage during which a need for a standard is determined and members are
identified who are willing to work on it.
2. Preparatory stage where a working draft of the standard is developed.
3. Committee stage where comments are elicited until a consensus is reached. The
output of this stage is the Draft International Standard (DIS).
4. Enquiry stage where DIS is circulated among all member bodies and then voted
upon. If a DIS does not receive 75% of the vote, it returns to lower stages. If it
passes the enquiry stage , it becomes a Final Draft International Standard.
5. Approval stage where Final Draft International Standard is circulated through all
member bodies for a final vote and again it must pass this stage with 75% of the
vote.
6. Publication stage where it is sent to the ISO Central Secretariat for publication. 7
CAREERS:
• Most international organizations, ISO included, only
advertise jobs on their websites.
• Paper-based applications are not accepted. Instead,
applicants create their profiles online which are stored
in the organization’s HR database.
• Knowledge of a second international language is often
desired.
 HISTORY OF OPEN SYSTEMS INTERCONNECT (OSI)

1. The Open Systems Interconnection model (OSI) was proposed

in the late 1970s.
2. Prior to OSI, networking was mostly government-sponsored or
vendor driven, by the following organizations.
a) ARPANET in the USA
b) CYCLADES in France
c) IBM - SNA - System Network Architecture
d) DECnet - Digital Equipment Corporation
3. The ISO, OSI is a set of protocols that allows any two
different computer systems to communicate regardless of
their underlying architecture and software.
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 HISTORY OF OPEN SYSTEMS INTERCONNECT
1. Two organizations began OSI standard development
independently, with the same goal: to define a unifying standard
for the architecture of networking systems.
2. The organisations were:
a) International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
b) International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
3. In 1983, the two standards were merged to form a standard called
The Basic Reference Model for Open Systems Interconnection
(OSI).
4. In 1984 Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) was approved as
International standard Number ISO 7498.
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 PURPOSE OF OSI

1. The purpose of the OSI model is to show

how to facilitate communication between
different systems without requiring
changes to the logic of the underlying
hardware and software.

2. The OSI model is not a protocol; it is a

model for understanding and designing a
network architecture that is flexible,
robust, and interoperable.

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PRINCIPLES USED TO DETERMINE THE OSI LAYERS
(PAGE 29 OF THE STANDARD)

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 THE OSI MODEL
Machine A Machine B

Communication
Each layer calls between different
upon the services machines at layer
of the layer just level in accordance
below it. with agreed
protocols

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 OSI COMMUNICATION MODEL (TEXTBOOK)
Intermediate Nodes are Routers

Interfaces define the

information
and services a layer
must provide for the
layer above it

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CATEGORIES OF LAYERS

User support layers:

Allow interoperability among
unrelated
software systems.

Network Support Layers:

Deal with physical aspects of moving data from
one device to another e.g. electrical
specifications, physical connections, physical
addressing, and transport timing and
reliability.

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DATA EXCHANGE IN OSI MODEL

At each layer, a
header, or possibly a
trailer, is added to
the data unit.

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 ENCAPSULATION AND DECAPSULATION
1. The data which should be transmitted to a new location should go through each layer in
the ISO Model.
2. When reaching each layer, the information is added to the data. It is called
encapsulation.
3. When the data reaches the destination, in each layer the added information is unpacked.
That process is known as decapsulation.

Encapsulation
Decapsulation

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FUNCTIONS OF THE PHYSICAL LAYER

1. Physical layer is responsible for the actual transmission of raw

data bits over a physical medium like cables or wireless signals.

2. It defines electrical, mechanical, and procedural interfaces

needed to send data across a network, including cable
specifications, voltage levels, and signal encoding.

Physical Layer
It specifies what is required to carry a bit stream over a
physical medium. Standards include:
1. Mechanical Specification of the interface
2. Electrical specifications of the interface
3. Transmission medium.
4. Definition of the procedures and functions of the physical
devices
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 EXAMPLE: ETHERNET PHYSICAL SPECIFICATIONS

CABLE STANDARDS VOLTAGE: POWER OVER POWER: POWER OVER ETHERNET

ETHERNET
• For 10BASE-T, cables must be two- • IEEE 802.3af has a voltage range • Type 1 PoE delivers a maximum of
pair, UTP of 37–57 V at the PD 15.40 W
• For Fast Ethernet and Gigabit, • Type 3 PoE delivers a maximum of
cables must be category 5 or 6 • IEEE 802.3at has a voltage range 60 W
• For 100BASE-T4, cables must be of 42.5–57 V at the PD
category 3 or higher
• Cable length between the
computer and the switch must be
less than 100 meters long

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FUNCTIONS OF THE PHYSICAL LAYER

Main Issues Covered by Physical Layer:

1. Physical characteristics of interfaces and medium
2. Representation of bits
3. Data rate
4. Synchronization
5. Line configuration
6. Physical topology
7. Transmission mode (duplex, half duplex or simplex)
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FUNCTIONS OF THE DATA LINK LAYER

The data link layer has three main functions:

1. It handles problems that occur as a result of bit transmission
errors.
2. It ensures data flows at a pace that doesn't overwhelm devices
that send and receive data.
3. It permits the transmission of data to Layer 3, the network layer,
where it is addressed and routed.

The Data Link Layer

1. Makes the physical layer appear error-free
to the upper layer.
2. Functions include:
a) Physical addressing
b) Flow-control
c) Error Control
d) Access Control
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FUNCTIONS OF THE NETWORK LAYER
Primary function of the network layer
1. Network layer enables different networks to be
interconnected.
2. It does this by forwarding packets to network routers,
which rely on algorithms to determine the best paths for
the data to travel.

The Network Layer

1. Responsible for the source-to-destination delivery
of a packet, sometimes across multiple networks.
2. Functions include:
a) Logical addressing
b) Routing of Packets

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FUNCTIONS OF THE TRANSPORT LAYER
1. Transport layer is responsible for ensuring reliable data transfer between
applications on different hosts.
2. It guarantees that all data is delivered correctly and in the right order, while
also managing congestion.

The Transport Layer

1. Responsible process-to-process delivery of the
entire message.
2. A process is an application program running on
a host.
3. Functions Include:
a) Service point addressing
b) Segmentation and assembly
c) Connection control
d) Flow control
e) Error Control

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 TRANSPORT LAYER FACILITATES DOWNLOADING WEB
PAGES/DOCUMENTS/VIDEOS/MUSIC SIMULTENEOUSLY

Each Tab is downloading data from a different Server

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 FUNCTIONS OF THE SESSION LAYER

The Session Layer

1. Responsible for establishing,
maintaining, and synchronizing the
interaction among communicating
systems.
2. Functions include:
a) Dialog control
b) Synchronization of messages

Session Layer is responsible for establishing, managing, and terminating communication sessions
between applications on a network.
1. It acts as a coordinator for data exchange by handling session setup, synchronization, and
termination processes to ensure smooth communication between applications.
2. it manages parameters like communication direction (full-duplex or half-duplex).
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3. It does authentication during a session.
FUNCTIONS OF THE PRESENTATION LAYER

The Presentation Layer

1. Responsible for syntax and
semantics of the information
exchanged.
2. Functions include:
a) Compression
b) Encryption/decryption
c) Translation

Presentation layer is responsible for:

1. managing data translation, encryption, compression,
2. Ensuring that data exchanged between applications is in a format
that can be understood by both the sender and receiver.

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 PRESENTATION LAYER EXAMPLE
Modern Web browsers can translate content in other languages, e.g. French

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FUNCTIONS OF THE APPLICATION LAYER
The application layer
1. Enables the user, whether human or software,
to access the network.
2. Examples of application layer protocols:
a) Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
b) File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
c) Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
d) Post Office Protocol (POP)
e) Domain Name System (DNS)

1. Application Layer serves as the interface between the end-

user applications and the underlying network services.
2. It provides protocols and services that are directly utilized by
end-user applications to communicate across the network.
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SUMMARY OF FUNCTIONS & EXAMPLES (1)

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SUMMARY OF FUNCTIONS & EXAMPLES (2)

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 SIMILARITY BETWEEN INTERNET PROTOCOL (TCP/IP) & OSI
User Datagram Protocol Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
(UDP) a protocol used to used for transmitting hypermedia
establish low-latency and documents, such as HTML.
loss-tolerating connections
between applications on the
internet. Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol(DHC) automatically provides
Internet Protocol, or (IP) an Internet Protocol (IP) host with its
responsible for routing IP address
packets across
interconnected networks
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
Internet Control Message enables application programs
Protocol (ICMP) is a exchange messages.
supporting protocol in the
Internet protocol suite used
to send error messages and Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is
operational information a procedure for mapping a dynamic
indicating success or failure IP address to a permanent physical
when communicating with machine address
another IP address 33