Designing Switch/Routers

This book examines the fundamental concepts and design methods associated with switch/routers. It discusses the main factors that are driving the changing network landscape and propelling the continuous growth in demand for bandwidth and high-performance network devices. Designing Switch/Routers: Fundamental Concepts and Design Methods focuses on the essential concepts that underlie the design of switch/routers in general. This book considers the switch/router as a generic Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding device without placing an emphasis on any particular manufacturer's device. The underlying concepts and design methods are not only positioned to be applicable to generic switch/routers but also to the typical switch/routers seen in the industry. The discussion provides a better insight into the protocols, methods, processes, and tools involved in designing switch/routers. The author discusses the design goals and features switch/router manufacturers consider when designing their products as well as the advanced and value-added features, along with the steps, used to build practical switch/routers. The last two chapters discuss real-world 6 switch/router architectures that employ the concepts and design methods described in the previous chapters. This book provides an introductory level discussion of switch/routers and is written in a style accessible to undergraduate and graduate students, engineers, and researchers in the networking and telecoms industry as well as academics and other industry professionals. The material and discussion are structured to serve as standalone teaching material for networking and telecom courses and/or supplementary material for such courses.

James Aweya, PhD, is a Chief Research Scientist at the Etisalat British Telecom Innovation Center (EBTIC), Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. He was a technical lead and senior systems architect with Nortel, Ottawa, Canada, from 1996 to 2009. He was awarded the 2007 Nortel Technology Award of Excellence (TAE) for his pioneering and innovative research on Timing and Synchronization across Packet and TDM Networks. He has been granted 70 US patents and has published over 54 journal papers, 40 conference papers, and 43 technical reports. He has authored five books including this book and is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

1. The Era of High-Performance Networks, 2. Introducing Multilayer Switching and the Switch/Router, 3. OSI and TCP/IP Reference Models, 4. Mapping Network Device Functions to the OSI Reference Model, 5. Review of Layer 2 and Layer 3 Forwarding, 6. Packet Forwarding in the Switch/Router: Layer 3 Forwarding Architectures, 7. Review of Multilayer Switching Methods - Switch/Router Internals, 8. Quality of Service in Switch/Routers, 9. Rate Management Mechanisms in Switch/Routers