Data Link Layer & it's Design Issues
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Data Link Layer
Data link layer is the
second layer of the open system interconnection (OSI) reference model. The data link layer together with physical layer
and the interconnecting medium provide a data link connection for reliable
transfer of data bits over an imperfect physical connection. It improves the
bit transport service of the physical layer by controlling the errors. The
data link layer includes error control, flow control and the associated link
management functions. This layer receives the data from the next higher layer
and adds some control bits to a block of data bits to transfer to the other
devices. The block of data along with the control bits is called frame, which
is handed over to the physical layer.
The physical layer convert the bit into an electrical signal for transmission
over the interconnecting transmission medium. The electrical signal is
converted back to bits form by the physical layer at the receiving side and the
frame is handed over to the data link layer. The data link layer removes the
control bits and checks for errors. It hands over the received data bits to the
next layer when no error is found.
The design issues for
data link layer are discussed below:-
- 1)
Services
Provided to the Network Layer
a)
Unacknowledged
Connectionless Service
b)
Acknowledge
Connectionless Service
c)
Acknowledge
Connection-oriented Service
- 2) Framing
- 3)
Error
Control
- 4)
Flow
Control
- 5)
Physical
Addressing
- 1) Services Provided to the Network Layer:-The primary responsibility of data link layer is to provide services to the network layer. The principle service is transferring data from the network layer on the source machine to the network layer on the destination machine. The two data link layers communicate with each other by data link control protocol.
a)
Un acknowledge
Connectionless Service:- As the name suggest it is unknowledge form of
transmission. Here, the source machine sends the data to the destination
machine without any acknowledgement. For this, no connection is either
established or released. If the data is lost due to noise or interference, the
lost data is not even recovered by the layer.
b)
Acknowledge
Connectionless Service:- In acknowledge
connectionless service each data frame is acknowledge by the destination
machine. If any data frame is lost or not arrived in time, the same can be
transmitted again. In this service no connections are used.
c)
Acknowledge
Connection-oriented Service:-
Acknowledge connection-oriented service establishes a connection prior
to data transmission. Each frame is numbered before transmission and
corresponding acknowledgement is also received. The transmission is carried out in distinct phases.
- 2) Framing:- To service the network layer, data link layer uses the service provided to it by the physical layer. Physical layer accepts the raw bit stream and delivers it to destination. This bit stream may contain error i.e., number of bits received may not be equal to number of bits transmitted. various simple methods used for framing are-
a)
Character
count
b)
Starting
and ending character, with character stuffing
c)
Starting
and ending flags, with bit stuffing.
- 3)
Error
Control:- To ensure the proper
sequencing and safe delivery of frames at the destination, an acknowledgement should
be sent by the destination network. The receiver sends back special control
frames bearing positive or negative acknowledgements about the incoming frames.
- 4)
Flow
control:- When the sender is running on
fast machine or lightly loaded machine and receiver is on slow or heavily
loaded machine, then the transmitter will transmit frames faster than the
receiver can accept them. Even if the transmission is error free at a certain
point the receiver will simply not be able to handle the frames as they arrive
and will start to lose some. The most common retransmission technique is known
as Automatic Repeat request (ARQ).
- 5)
Physical
Addressing:- If frames are to be
distributed two different systems on the network, the data link layer adds a
header to the frame to define the physical address of sender and/or receiver of
the frame.
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