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Packet switching is a communications paradigm in which packets (discrete blocks of data) are routed between nodes over data links shared with other traffic. In each network node, packets are queued or buffered, resulting in variable delay. This contrasts with the other principal paradigm, circuit switching, which sets up a limited number of constant bit rate and constant delay connections between the nodes for their exclusive use for the duration of the communication.

Multiplex techniques

Circuit mode — for constant bandwidth

TDM | FDM | WDM | Polarization multiplexing | Spatial multiplexing (MIMO)

Statistical multiplexing — for variable bandwidth

Packet mode | Dynamic TDM | FHSS | DSSS | OFDMA

Related topics

Channel access methods | Media Access Control discuss edit

Packet mode or packet oriented communication may be utilized with or without a packet switch or router. Examples of the latter case are point-to-point data links, digital video and audio broadcasting or a shared physical medium, such as a bus network, ring network, or hub network.

Packet mode communication is a statistical multiplexing technique, also known as a dynamic bandwidth allocation method, where a physical communication channel is divided into an arbitrary number of logical variable bit-rate channels or data streams. Each stream is divided into packets that normally are forwarded by a network node asynchronously in a first-come first-serve fashion. Alternatively, the packets may be forwarded according to some scheduling discipline for fair queuing or differentiated and/or guaranteed Quality of service. In case of a shared physical media, the packets may be delivered according to some packet-mode multiple access scheme.

Networks using packet switching can use datagrams or connectionless messages and/or virtual circuit switching (also known as connection oriented). Some connectionless protocols include Ethernet, UDP, IP. Some connection oriented protocols include TCP, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), X.25 and Frame relay.

Contents 1 Connectionless packet switching and routing 2 Packet switching in networks 3 History of packet switching 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links

Packets are routed to their destination as determined by a routing algorithm. The routing algorithm can create paths based on various metrics and desirable qualities of the routing path. For example, low latency may be of paramount concern and everything else is secondary, or a minimum hop count.

It's also entirely possible to have to weigh the various metrics against each other. For example, reducing the hop count could increase the latency to an unacceptable limit and some kind of balance would need to be found. For multi-parameter optimization, some form of optimization may be needed.

Once a route is determined for a packet, it is entirely possible that the route may change for the next packet, thus leading to a case where packets from the same source headed to the same destination could be routed differently.

Packet switching influenced the development of the Actor model of concurrent computation in which messages sent to the same address may be delivered in an order different from the order in which they were sent.

Main article: Packet switched network

Packet switching is used to optimize the use of the channel capacity available in a network, to minimize the transmission latency (i.e. the time it takes for data to pass across the network), and to increase robustness of communication.

The most well-known use of packet switching is the Internet and local area networks. The Internet uses the Internet protocol suite over a variety of data link layer protocols. For example, Ethernet and Frame relay are very common. Newer mobile phone technologies (e.g., GPRS, I-mode) also use packet switching.

X.25 is a notable use of packet switching in that, despite being based on packet switching methods, it provided virtual circuits to the user. These virtual circuits carry variable-length packets In 1978, X.25 was used to provide the first international and commercial packet switching network, the International Packet Switched Service (IPSS). Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) also is a virtual circuit technology, which uses fixed-length cell relay connection oriented packet switching.

Datagram packet switching is also called connectionless networking because no connections are established. Technologies such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) create virtual circuits on top of datagram networks. Virtual circuits are especially useful in building robust failover mechanisms and allocating bandwidth for delay-sensitive applications.

MPLS and its predecessors, as well as ATM, have been called "fast packet" technologies. MPLS, indeed, has been called "ATM without cells" ^[1]. Modern routers, however, do not require these technologies to be able to forward variable-length packets at multigigabit speeds.

The concept of packet switching was first explored by Paul Baran in the early 1960's, and then independently a few years later by Donald Davies (Abbate, 2000). Leonard Kleinrock conducted early research and published a book in the related field of digital message switching (without the packets) in 1961, and also later played a leading role in building and management of the world's first packet switched network, the ARPANET.

Baran developed the concept of packet switching during his research at the RAND Corporation for the US Air Force into survivable communications networks, first published as RAND Paper P-2626 in 1962 [1], and then including and expanding somewhat within a series of eleven papers titled On Distributed Communications in 1964 [2]. Baran's P-2626 paper described a general architecture for a large-scale, distributed, survivable communications network. The paper focuses on three key ideas: first, use of a decentralized network with multiple paths between any two points; and second, dividing complete user messages into what he called message blocks (later called packets); then third, delivery of these messages by store and forward switching.

Baran's study made its way to Robert Taylor and J.C.R. Licklider at the Information Processing Technology Office, both wide-area network evangelists, and it helped influence Lawrence Roberts to adopt the technology when Taylor put him in charge of development of the ARPANET.

Baran's packet switching work was similar to the research performed independently by Donald Davies at the National Physical Laboratory, UK. In 1965, Davies developed the concept of packet switched networks and proposed development of a UK wide network. He gave a talk on the proposal in 1966, after which a person from the Ministry of Defense told him about Baran's work. Davies met Lawrence Roberts at the 1967 ACM Symposium on Operating System Principles, bringing the two groups together.

Interestingly, Davies had chosen some of the same parameters for his original network design as Baran, such as a packet size of 1024 bits. Roberts and the ARPANET team took the name "packet switching" itself from Davies's work.

• Store and forward delay
• Circuit switching
• Message switching
• Public switched data network
• Packet switched network
• Optical burst switching
• Statistical multiplexing
• ALOHAnet

• Leonard Kleinrock, Information Flow in Large Communication Nets, (MIT, Cambridge, May 31, 1961) Proposal for a Ph.D. Thesis
• Leonard Kleinrock. Information Flow in Large Communication Nets (RLE Quarterly Progress Report, July 1961)
• Leonard Kleinrock. Communication Nets: Stochastic Message Flow and Delay (Mcgraw-Hill, New York, 1964)
• Paul Baran et al., On Distributed Communications, Volumes I-XI (RAND Corporation Research Documents, August, 1964)
  • Paul Baran, On Distributed Communications: I Introduction to Distributed Communications Network (RAND Memorandum RM-3420-PR. August 1964)
• Paul Baran, On Distributed Communications Networks, (IEEE Transactions on Communications Systems, March 1964)
• D. W. Davies, K. A. Bartlett, R. A. Scantlebury, and P. T. Wilkinson, A digital communications network for computers giving rapid response at remote terminals (ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles. October 1967)
• R. A. Scantlebury, P. T. Wilkinson, and K. A. Bartlett, The design of a message switching Centre for a digital communication network (IFIP 1968)
• Larry Roberts and Tom Merrill, Toward a Cooperative Network of Time-Shared Computers (Fall AFIPS Conference. October 1966)
• Lawrence Roberts, The Evolution of Packet Switching (Proceedings of the IEEE, November, 1978)

• Katie Hafner, Where Wizards Stay Up Late (Simon and Schuster, 1996) pp 52-67
• Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (MIT Press, 2000) ISBN 0-262-51115-0

• Packet Switching History and Design, site reviewed by Baran, Roberts, and Kleinrock
• Paul Baran and the Origins of the Internet
• A Brief History of the Internet

This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.