ASHPREET SINGH 01913202720

CSE-1 7TH SEMESTER

Assignment 1 - ADVANCED COMPUTER NETWORKS

(ACN)

Q1. Explain SONET layered architecture.

A1. SONET stands for Synchronous Optical Network. SONET is a communication
protocol, developed by Bellcore – that is used to transmit a large amount of
data over relatively large distances using optical fibre. With SONET, multiple
digital data streams are transferred at the same time over the optical fibre.

● Developed by Bellcore
● Used in North America
● Standardised by ANSI (American National Standards Institute)
● Similar to SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) which is used in
Europe and Japan

SONET is called a Synchronous Network because a single clock (Primary

Reference Clock, PRC) handles the timing of transmission of signals &
equipment across the entire network.

SONET Network Elements:

 1. STS Multiplexer:
● Performs multiplexing of signals
● Converts electrical signal to optical signal
2. STS Demultiplexer:
● Performs demultiplexing of signals
● Converts optical signal to electrical signal
3. Regenerator: It is a repeater that takes an optical signal
and regenerates (increases the strength) it.
4. Add/Drop Multiplexer: It allows to add signals coming from
different sources into a given path or remove a signal.

SONET is used to convert an electrical signal into an optical signal so that it

can travel longer distances.

SONET Connections:

● Section: Portion of network connecting two neighbouring devices.

● Line: Portion of network connecting two neighbouring multiplexers.
● Path: End-to-end portion of the network.

SONET Layers:

SONET includes four functional

layers:

1. Path Layer:
● It is responsible for the movement of signals from its
optical source to its optical destination.
● STS Mux/Demux provides path layer functions.
2. Line Layer:
● It is responsible for the movement of signal across a
physical line.
● STS Mux/Demux and Add/Drop Mux provides Line
layer functions.
3. Section Layer:
● It is responsible for the movement of signal across a
physical section.
● Each device of network provides section layer functions.
4. Photonic Layer:
● It corresponds to the physical layer of the OSI model.
 ● It includes physical specifications for the optical fibre
channel (presence of light = 1 and absence of light = 0).

Advantages of SONET:

● Transmits data to large distances

● Low electromagnetic interference
● High data rates
● Large Bandwidth

Q2. Explain various QOS mechanism.

A2. Quality-of-Service (QoS) refers to traffic control mechanisms that seek
to either differentiate performance based on application or network-operator
requirements or provide predictable or guaranteed performance to
applications, sessions, or traffic aggregates. Basic phenomenon for QoS means
in terms of packet delay and losses of various kinds.
Need for QoS –

● Video and audio conferencing require a bounded delay and loss rate.
● Video and audio streaming requires a bounded packet loss rate, it
may not be so sensitive to delay.
● Time-critical applications (real-time control) in which bounded delay
is considered to be an important factor.
● Valuable applications should be provided better services than
less valuable applications.

QoS Specification –
QoS requirements can be specified as:
 1. Delay
2. Delay Variation(Jitter)
3. Throughput
4. Error Rate

There are two types of QoS Solutions:

Stateless Solutions –
Routers maintain no fine-grained state about traffic, one positive factor of it is
that it is scalable and robust. But it has weak services as there is no guarantee
about the kind of delay or performance in a particular application which we
have to encounter.
1. Stateful Solutions –

Routers maintain a per-flow state as flow is very important in

providing the Quality-of-Service i.e. providing powerful services such
as guaranteed services and high resource utilisation, providing
protection, and is much less scalable and robust.

Integrated Services(IntServ) –

1. An architecture for providing QoS guarantees in IP networks

for individual application sessions.
2. Relies on resource reservation, and routers need to maintain
state information of allocated resources and respond to new
call setup requests.

3. Network decides whether to admit or deny a new call setup request.

IntServ QoS Components –

● Resource reservation: call setup signalling, traffic, QoS

declaration, per-element admission control.
● QoS-sensitive scheduling e.g WFQ queue discipline.
 ● QoS-sensitive routing algorithm(QSPF)
● QoS-sensitive packet discard strategy.

RSVP-Internet Signalling –
It creates and maintains a distributed reservation state, initiated by the
receiver and scales for multicast, which needs to be refreshed otherwise
reservation times out as it is in soft state. Latest paths were discovered through
“PATH” messages (forward direction) and used by RESV messages (reserve
direction).

Call Admission –

● Session must first declare it’s QoS requirement and characterize

the traffic it will send through the network.
● R-specification: defines the QoS being requested, i.e. what kind of
bound we want on the delay, what kind of packet loss is acceptable,
etc.
● T-specification: defines the traffic characteristics like bustiness in
the traffic.
● A signaling protocol is needed to carry the R-spec and T-spec to
the routers where reservation is required.
● Routers will admit calls based on their R-spec, T-spec and based on
the current resource allocated at the routers to other calls.

Diff-Serv –
Differentiated Service is a stateful solution in which each flow doesn’t mean a
different state. It provides reduced state services i.e. maintaining state only for
larger granular flows rather than end-to-end flows tries to achieve the best of
both worlds.

Intended to address the following difficulties with IntServ and RSVP:

1. Flexible Service Models:

IntServ has only two classes, want to provide more qualitative service
classes: want to provide ‘relative’ service distinction.
 2. Simpler signaling:

Many applications and users may only want to specify a more

qualitative notion of service.

Streaming Live Multimedia –

● Examples: Internet radio talk show, Live sporting event.

● Streaming: playback buffer, playback buffer can lag tens of
seconds after and still have timing constraint.
● Interactivity: fast forward is impossible, but rewind and pause
is possible.

Quality of Service (QoS) is a crucial aspect of computer networks, ensuring

that critical applications receive the necessary bandwidth and resources to
operate smoothly. QoS mechanisms provide a set of tools and techniques to
prioritize traffic, manage congestion, and guarantee performance for specific
applications or types of traffic.
1. Traffic Classification and Marking:

The foundation of QoS implementation lies in identifying and classifying different

types of traffic. This involves marking packets with information about their
priority,
application type, or service level. Common classification methods include
deep packet inspection (DPI), which analyses packet contents, and type of
service (TOS) byte, a predefined field in IP headers.

2. Queuing:

Once traffic is classified, queuing mechanisms come into play to manage the
order in which packets are processed. Different queue disciplines prioritise
traffic based on its importance. Common queuing disciplines include:

● First-In, First-Out (FIFO): Packets are processed in the order they

arrive, regardless of priority.
● Priority Queuing (PQ): Packets are assigned different priorities,
with high-priority packets getting processed first.
● Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ): Packets are assigned weights based on
their priority, and each queue receives a fair share of bandwidth.
● Class Based Weighted Fair Queuing (CBWFQ): Similar to WFQ, but
traffic is further classified into classes for more granular prioritization.
3. Congestion Avoidance and Congestion Control:
Congestion arises when network traffic exceeds the available bandwidth,
leading to delays, packet loss, and degraded performance. QoS mechanisms
help prevent congestion and mitigate its effects:

● Congestion Avoidance: Anticipates congestion by monitoring

network traffic and taking proactive measures to reduce traffic
load.
● Congestion Control: Reacts to congestion by employing techniques
like slowing down traffic generation or dropping low-priority packets.
4. Admission Control:

Admission control ensures that the network has sufficient resources to

handle new traffic requests before accepting them. This prevents
overloading the network and maintaining the desired QoS levels for existing
traffic.

5. Policing and Shaping:

Policing enforces traffic policies by monitoring and controlling the rate at which
traffic enters the network. Shaping smoothens out traffic bursts by delaying
packets to maintain a consistent traffic flow.

6. Resource Reservation:
Resource reservation guarantees bandwidth or other network resources for
specific applications or traffic flows. This ensures that critical applications
receive the resources they need, even when the network is under load.

7. QoS Routing:

QoS routing algorithms consider the QoS capabilities of network paths when
selecting the best route for traffic. This ensures that traffic is routed through
paths that can provide the required QoS levels.

8. QoS Monitoring:
QoS monitoring tools provide insights into network performance and the
effectiveness of QoS mechanisms. They collect and analyze data on traffic
patterns, resource utilization, and QoS metrics to identify potential issues and
optimize QoS policies.

Q3. Explain cloud computing.

A3. Cloud Computing refers to manipulating, configuring, and accessing the
applications online. It offers online data storage, infrastructure and application.

Characteristics:

● On-Demand Self-Service: Users can provision and

manage computing resources as needed without
requiring human intervention from service providers.
● Broad Network Access: Services are available over the network
and can be accessed through standard mechanisms, fostering
accessibility from various devices.
● Resource Pooling: Computing resources are pooled to serve
multiple consumers, with different physical and virtual resources
dynamically assigned and reassigned according to demand.
● Rapid Elasticity: Computing capabilities can be rapidly scaled up
or down to accommodate variable workloads, ensuring efficiency
and cost-effectiveness.
● Measured Service: Cloud systems automatically control and
optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability,
providing transparency and accountability for both the provider
and consumer.

There are certain technologies that are working behind the cloud computing
platforms making cloud computing flexible, reliable, usable. These technologies
are listed below:

● Virtualization
● Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
● Grid Computing
 ● Utility Computing

→ Virtualization is a technique which allows to share single physical instance of

an application or resource among multiple organizations or
tenants(customers). It does so by assigning a logical name to a physical
resource and providing a pointer to that physical resource when demanded.

→ Service-Oriented Architecture helps to use applications as a service for

other applications regardless type of vendor, product or technology. Therefore
it is possible to exchange of data between applications of different vendors
without additional programming or making changes to services.
→ Grid Computing refers to distributed computing in which a group computers
from multiple locations are connected with each other to achieve common
objective. These computer resources are heterogeneous and geographically
dispersed.

→ Utility computing is based on Pay per Use model. It offers computational

resources on demand as a metered service. Cloud computing, grid
computing, and managed IT services are based on the concept of Utility
computing

Cloud Computing Architecture:

we can broadly divide the cloud architecture into two parts: Front End and
Back End
→ Front End refers to the client part of the cloud computing system. It consists of
interfaces and applications that are required to access the cloud computing
platforms. Eg. Web Browser

→ Back End refers to the cloud itself. It consists of all the resources required
to provide cloud computing services. It comprises huge data storage, virtual
machines, security mechanism, services, deployment models, servers etc.

Cloud Infrastructure Components:

Cloud infrastructure consist of servers, storage, network, management

software, and deployment software and platform virtualization.
 ● Hypervisor is a firmware or low level program that acts as a Virtual
Machine Manager. It allows to share the single physical instance of
cloud resources between several tenants.
● Management Software helps to maintain and configure the infrastructure.
● Deployment software helps to deploy and integrate the application on
the cloud.
● Network is the key component of cloud infrastructure. It allows to
connect cloud services over the internet. It is also possible to deliver
network as a utility over the internet i.e. the consumer can customize
the network route and protocol.
● Server helps to compute the resource sharing and offer other services
such as resource allocation and deallocation, monitoring resources,
security etc.

There are three main models for cloud computing. Each model represents a
different part of the cloud computing stack.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Infrastructure as a Service, sometimes abbreviated as IaaS, contains the

basic building blocks for cloud IT and typically provide access to networking
features, computers (virtual or on dedicated hardware), and data storage
space.
Infrastructure as a Service provides you with the highest level of flexibility and
management control over your IT resources and is most similar to existing IT
resources that many IT departments and developers are familiar with today.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Platforms as a service remove the need for organizations to manage the

underlying infrastructure (usually hardware and operating systems) and allow
you to focus on the deployment and management of your applications. This
helps you be more efficient as you don’t need to worry about resource
procurement, capacity planning, software maintenance, patching, or any of the
other undifferentiated heavy lifting involved in running your application.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Software as a Service provides you with a completed product that is run and
managed by the service provider. In most cases, people referring to Software
as a Service are referring to end-user applications. With a SaaS offering you do
not have to think about how the service is maintained or how the underlying
infrastructure is managed; you only need to think about how you will use that
particular piece of software. A common example of a SaaS application is
web-based email where you can send and receive email without having to
manage feature additions to the email product or maintaining the servers
and operating systems that the email program is running on.

Anything that involves storing and processing huge volumes of data at high
speeds—and requires more storage and computing capacity than most
organizations can or want to purchase and deploy on-premises—is a target for
cloud computing. Examples include:

Big data analytics

Internet of Things (IoT)

Artificial intelligence—particularly machine learning and deep learning

applications

Types of cloud computing ;

Public Cloud

Public cloud is a type of cloud computing in which a cloud service provider

makes computing resources—anything from SaaS applications, to individual
virtual machines (VMs), to bare metal computing hardware, to complete
enterprise-grade infrastructures and development platforms—available to users
over the public internet. These resources might be accessible for free, or access
might be sold according to subscription-based or pay-per-usage pricing models.

Private cloud
Private cloud is a cloud environment in which all cloud infrastructure and
computing resources are dedicated to, and accessible by, one customer
only. Private cloud combines many of the benefits of cloud computing—
including elasticity, scalability, and ease of service delivery—with the access
control, security, and resource customization of on-premises infrastructure.

A private cloud is typically hosted on-premises in the customer's data center.

But a private cloud can also be hosted on an independent cloud provider’s
infrastructure or built on rented infrastructure housed in an offsite data center.

Hybrid cloud

Hybrid cloud is just what it sounds like—a combination of public and private cloud
environments. Specifically, and ideally, a hybrid cloud connects an organization's
private cloud services and public clouds into a single, flexible infrastructure for
running the organization’s applications and workloads.

The goal of hybrid cloud is to establish a mix of public and private cloud resources
—and with a level of orchestration between them—that gives an organization
the flexibility to choose the optimal cloud for each application or workload and to
move workloads freely between the two clouds as circumstances change.

Multicloud and hybrid multicloud

Multicloud is the use of two or more clouds from two or more different cloud
providers. Having a multicloud environment can be as simple using email SaaS
from one vendor and image editing SaaS from another. But when enterprises
talk about multicloud, they're typically talking about using multiple cloud
services—including SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS services—from two or more of the
leading public cloud providers.
Q4. Explain Next Generation networks.
A4. Next Generation Network (NGN) refers to a packet-based network and it
can be used for both telecommunication services as well as data and it
supports mobility. It is able to make use of multiple broadband capabilities,
especially Quality of Services (QoS) enabled transport technologies where
the
service-related functions are independent of the underlying transport-related
technologies.
The main goal of Next Generation Network (NGN) is to serve/work as an
replacement of Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and Integrated
Services Digital Network (ISDN).

Fundamental characteristics for defining NGN :

● Packet based transfer.

● Separation of control functions for bearer capabilities, call/session
– service.
● Decoupling of service and network, and provision of open
interfaces (I/F).
● A wide range of services like (Real Time(RT)/ streaming/ non Real
Time (RT)/ multimedia).
● Interworking with legacy networks via open I/F.
● Support of Generalized mobility.
● Support to unrestricted access by users to different service providers.

Services supported in NGN :

● Data communication services.

● Multimedia Services.
● Public interest services.
● Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)/Integrated Services
Digital Network (ISDN) simulation services.
 ● Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)/ Integrated Services
Digital Network (ISDN) emulation services

Next Generation Network Layer :

● In Access Layer, different types of media gateways that

support connection to and from access network with the core
network are included.
● Core network layer is network handling converged services based
on Internet Protocol (IP). Control layer works as call server. It
provides call control functions also provides control of a media
gateway.
● Service layer is an IT platform that creates a service creation
environment extending its functionality in order to cover new
network scenarios as an intelligent network.

The below figure illustrates Next Generation Network (NGN) Layers as follows.