To send a message from a source end system to a destination end system, the source breaks long messages into smaller chunks of data known as packets. Between source and destination, each packet travels through communication links and packet switches (for which there are two predominant types, routers and link-layer switches). Packets are transmitted over each communication link at a rate equal to the full transmission rate of the link. So, if a source end system or a packet switch is sending a packet of L bits over a link with transmission rate R bits/sec, then the time to transmit the packet is L / R seconds.
Most packet switches use store-and-forward transmission at the inputs to the links. Store-and-forward transmission means that the packet switch must receive the entire packet before it can begin to transmit the first bit of the packet onto the outbound link. To explore store-and-forward transmission in more detail, consider a simple network consisting of two end systems connected by a single router, as shown in Figure 1.11. A router will typically have many incident links, since its job is to switch an incoming packet onto an outgoing link; in this simple example, the router has the rather simple task of transferring a packet from one (input) link to the only other attached link.
In this example, the source has three packets, each consisting of L bits, to send to the destination. At the snapshot of time shown in Figure 1.11, the source has transmitted some of packet 1, and the front of packet 1 has already arrived at the router. Because the router employs store-and-forwarding, at this instant of time, the router cannot transmit the bits it has received; instead it must first buffer (i.e., "store") the packet's bits. Only after the router has received all of the packet's bits can it begin to transmit (i.e., "forward") the packet onto the outbound link.
To gain some insight into store-and-forward transmission, let's now calculate the amount of time that elapses from when the source begins to send the packet until the destination has received the entire packet. (Here we will ignore propagation delay - the time it takes for the bits to travel across the wire at near the speed of light. The source begins to transmit at time 0; at time L/R seconds, the source has transmitted the entire packet, and the entire packet has been received and stored at the router (since there is no propagation delay).
At time L/R seconds, since the router has just received the entire packet, it can begin to transmit the packet onto the outbound link towards the destination; at time 2L/R, the router has transmitted the entire packet, and the entire switch instead forwarded bits as soon as they arrive (without first receiving the entire packet), then the total delay would be L/R since bits are not held up at the router. But, routers need to receive, store, and process the entire packet before forwarding.
Now let's calculate the amount of time that elapses from when the source begins to send the first packet until the destination has received all three packets. As before, at time L/R, the router begins to forward the first packet. But also at time L/R the source will begin to send the second packet, since it has just finished sending the entire first packet. Thus, at time 2L/R, the destination has received the first packet and the router has received the second packet. Similarly, at time 3L/R, the destination has received the first two packets and the router has received the third packet. Finally, at time 4L/R the destination has received all three packets!
Let's now consider the general case of sending one packet from source to destination over a path consisting of N links each of rate R (thus, there are N-1 routers between source and destination). Applying the same logic as above, we see that the end-to-end delay is:
dend-to-end = N L/R
You may now want to try to determine what the delay would be for P packets sent over a series of N links.
About the Authors
Jim Kurose is a Distinguished University Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is currently on leave from the University of Massachusetts, serving as an Assistant Director at the US National Science Foundation, where he leads the Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering.
Dr. Kurose has received a number of recognitions for his educational activities including Outstanding Teacher Awards from the National Technological University (eight times), the University of Massachusetts, and the Northeast Association of Graduate Schools. He received the IEEE Taylor Booth Education Medal and was recognized for his leadership of Massachusetts' Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative. He has won several conference best paper awards and received the IEEE Infocom Achievement Award and the ACM Sigcomm Test of Time Award.
Dr. Kurose is a former Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Communications and of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking. He has served as Technical Program co-Chair for IEEE Infocom, ACM SIGCOMM, ACM Internet Measurement Conference, and ACM SIGMETRICS. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the ACM. His research interests include network protocols and architecture, network measurement, multimedia communication, and modeling and performance evaluation. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Columbia University.
Keith Ross is the Dean of Engineering and Computer Science at NYU Shanghai and the Leonard J. Shustek Chair Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at NYU. Previously he was at University of Pennsylvania (13 years), Eurecom Institute (5 years) and Polytechnic University (10 years). He received a B.S.E.E from Tufts University, a M.S.E.E. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Computer and Control Engineering from The University of Michigan. Keith Ross is also the co-founder and original CEO of Wimba, which develops online multimedia applications for e-learning and was acquired by Blackboard in 2010.
Professor Ross's research interests are in privacy, social networks, peer-to-peer networking, Internet measurement, content distribution networks, and stochastic modeling. He is an ACM Fellow, an IEEE Fellow, recipient of the Infocom 2009 Best Paper Award, and recipient of 2011 and 2008 Best Paper Awards for Multimedia Communications (awarded by IEEE Communications Society). He has served on numerous journal editorial boards and conference program committees, including IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, ACM SIGCOMM, ACM CoNext, and ACM Internet Measurement Conference. He also has served as an advisor to the Federal Trade Commission on P2P file sharing.
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