Department of Computer Science and Technology

Technical reports

Extending the local area network

Ian Malcom Leslie

February 1983, 71 pages

This technical report is based on a dissertation submitted February 1983 by the author for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the University of Cambridge, Darwin College.

DOI: 10.48456/tr-43

Abstract

This dissertation is concerned with the development of a large computer network which has many properties associated with local area computer networks, including high bandwidth and lower error rates. The network is made up of component local area networks, specifically Cambridge rings, which are connected either through local ring-ring bridges or through a high capacity satellite link. In order to take advantage of the characteristics of the resulting network, the protocols used are the same simple protocols as those used on a single Cambridge ring. This in turn allows many applications, which might have been thought of as local area network applications, to run on the larger network.

Much of this work is concerned with an interconnection strategy which allows hosts of different component networks to communicate in a flexible manner without building an extra internetwork layer into protocol hierarchy. The strategy arrived at is neither a datagram approach nor a system of concatenated error and flow controlled virtual circuits. Rather, it is a lightweight virtual circuit approach which preserves the order of blocks sent on a circuit, but which makes no other guarantees about the delivery of these blocks. An extra internetwork protocol layer is avoided by modifying the system used on a single Cambridge ring which binds service names to addresses so that it now binds service names to routes across the network.

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BibTeX record

@TechReport{UCAM-CL-TR-43,
  author =	 {Leslie, Ian Malcom},
  title = 	 {{Extending the local area network}},
  year = 	 1983,
  month = 	 feb,
  url = 	 {https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-43.pdf},
  institution =  {University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory},
  doi = 	 {10.48456/tr-43},
  number = 	 {UCAM-CL-TR-43}
}