Identify major protocols for circuit switching and packet switching.
Circuit switching refers to an approach of deploying a communication network where two other network nodes form a dedicated communication conduit for the first two nodes to communicate. The circuit ensures that the conduit’s full bandwidth remains connected throughout the communication session. For instance, whenever a call was made from one booth to another in the early analog telephone networks, switches inside a telephone exchange resulted in a continuous line circuit connecting the two telephone booths for the duration of the call. Therefore, Circuit-switched networks necessitate a dedicated point-to-point links during call sessions. On the other hand, packet-switched networks transmit data in small, separate data packets focused on destination address for each packet. At the destination host, packets are then reassembled into an accurate sequence to convey the message (Imaizumi et al., 2007, P.78).
There exists two primary packet switching protocols namely connectionless packet switching (datagram switching) and connection-oriented packet switching (virtual circuit switching). In connection-oriented switching, a virtual circuit is established prior to the actual data transmission. However, unlike circuit switching that receives a call accept signal from the end / destination node, virtual circuit switching receives the call accept signal from each adjacent intermediate node (Imaizumi et al., 2007, P. 79).
On the other hand, the datagram packet switching protocol uses a unique, more dynamic system, to resolve a route through the network links. In this approach, every packet is handled independently, where its header contains complete information regarding the packet destination. The intermediate nodes inspect the header information of the packet and settle on which node to transmit the packet to, in order to get to its destination. According to Imaizumi et al.’s (2007), in order to arrive at a decision, each node considers, first, the shortest route to pass the packet to its destination using protocols such as RIP/OSPF and second, free nodes to move the packets through. Thus, this approach does not follow a pre-established route.
