Transmission Control Protocol and User Datagram Protocol - Assignment Example

TCP/ IP Protocol Suite Name Number Date Table of Contents 1. Analysis TCP and UDP…………………………………………………………3 2. Structure Analysis of IP Address……………………………………………….4 3. Analysis of CIDR……………………………………………………………….5 4. Application of NAT…………………………………………………………….5 5. NAT and Internet Security……………………………………………………..6 6. Analysis of IPv6 versus IPv4…………………………………………………..8 7. References…………………………………………………………………….10 1. Analysis TCP and UDP Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a set of protocols or rules that are used with Internet Protocol to send data in terns of units or packets between computers that are interconnected or over the Internet. Thus, TCP ensures that the packets that constitute a message are tracked for efficient routing over the Internet. Hence, TCP ensures that connection is established and maintained until the messages have been exchanged. On the other hand, User Datagram Protocol is protocol for communication but it offers limited amount of service when data are exchanged between computers that are in a network and make use of Internet Protocol. Thus, UDP utilises datagram to ensure that data is exchanged between computers and does not provide services such as ensuring that the message is divided into packets (Casad 2004). The two protocols (TCP and UDP) provide means in which data can be exchanged between different computers. However, TCP is reliable while UDP is unreliable but its transmission is faster. This means that TCP ensures that every packet reaches the desired end and the packets are then sorted into order. However, due to this demanding requirement, it sometimes causes congestion that slows down the entire process. TCP is favourable when it comes to sending data with integrity such as WebPages, databases and emails. In comparison, UDP sends data at a faster rate but with little checking and no clear of ordering the packets; sometimes the datagram can arrive when they are disordered (Axe 2003). Moreover, UDP has a checksum that sometimes cannot correct any flows since even after checking the packet and found corrupt; it is always too late to re-request for that given packet. Therefore, video/ audio streaming can be used by UDP since this method is fast and since quality is not that much important. 2. Structure Analysis of IP Address An IP address can be defined as a unique address that is used to identify and locate a device (node) over a network. Hence, this is the addressing that is used for the exchange of data packets over a network, which also utilises IP protocol. IP addresses are usually made up of four quadrants that are separated by dots e.g. XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX in which XXX can be numbers between 0 and 255. An example of IP address is 192.168.88.7 (Koz 2005). Moreover, the structure of IP address classes is divided into five classes: Class A, Class B, Class C, Class D and Class E. The diagram below can illustrate their uniqueness: Network address is a portion of Internet Protocol address. In most cases, it is the first bytes of specific class of addresses. For example, for class A, the network address is the first byte, and Class B is the two first bytes has illustrated by 0s and 1s in the diagram above (Lammle 2007). Subnet address is splitting the IP address into sectors that ensuring that Internet addressing system allows subdivision of a single Internet address to enable coverage of multiple physical address within the Internet; this is achieved through splitting IP address into host address number and local network number. Host address is the specific address that is given to a computer or node within a network (Loshin 2004). 3. Analysis of CIDR The initials CIDR stands for Classless Inter-Domain Routing, which was developed in 1990s. CIDR was developed to be used over routing requirements through routing network traffic across Internet. Before the inception of CIDR, Internet routers based their operations on IP address that was based on classes. This means that the IP address determines the subnet for the aim of routing. Thus, CIDR replaces the common IP subnetting that enables organising the IP addresses into independent sub networks; does not employee the value of the addresses. CIDR may also be viewed in terms of super-netting because it allows multiple subnets to be brought together to enable network routing. CIDR combines the IP address and network mask to give a computer and address as illustrated by the following format: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/n in which n is the number if ‘1’ mask bits (Cheswick and Bellovin 2003). In addition, CIDR supports message routing and Internet address allocation without the use of traditional IP address classes. This means that grouping based on CIDR requires the segments that are involved to be numerically adjacent in the address space. 4. Application of NAT There is an increase on requirements of Internet especially in the business and home networks. This translates into decrease of the number of IP address that can be used to fulfil the requirements of these numerous IP address requirements. Due to this complexity and shortcoming, Network Address Translator has come handy. NAT enables the translation of IP address that used with one network to another network that uses a different IP address that is know within a different network. Therefore, one of this network can be refereed to as inside network (private) and outside network (public), and this strategy is usually applicable to an organisation where the organisation maps internal network addresses into external networks and vice versa. In most cases, an internal network contacts another machine that is on the Internet with the use of IP address and using IP packets. These packets contain direction or addressing details that will enable the packets to get to their destination. Thus, NAT requires information such as the source of IP address and source of UDP or TCP port (Hagino 2005). Therefore, when these packets go through the NAT gateway, they are modified to appear that they originate from the gateway. At this point, the NAT gateway records the details of the packets to ensure that the process can be reversed and ensure that security measures cannot impend exchange of information. Thus, utilising such strategies will ensure that few number of IP addresses will be required for entire organisation nodes or computers that are within the Internet. 5. NAT and Internet Security The NAT routers are not bought for its security benefit, but all NAT routers posses internal capability that assists in been effective hardware firewalls and thus are able to prevent unwanted, ‘unsolicited’ unexpected and annoying or dangerous traffic that may be inappropriate for LAN network (Comer 2006). This is possible because of the link between the Internet and internal private network. The NAT router is able to memorise all outgoing packets in terms of the port number and destination IP through help of internal table that also assigns packets the own ports and IP for accepting the return traffic. Thus, when an incoming packets from the Internet and is supposed to pass to the internal network, the NAT router scans the internal table and determines whether the packet was been expected through comparing it with the remote port number and IP. If a match is ascertained, the table entry will also aid in pinpointing the exact local computer that the packet is addressed. However, if the packet does not match with the internal table requirements, the NAT router discards such messages. Thus, the internal network will never be bothered (Hagen 2002). Generally, the NAT routers allows the flow of information freely from the internal secure LAN to insecure Internet, and will definitely block any inbound data from the Internet; this means a NAT router can be seen as one-way valve as illustrated by the figure below. Therefore, from the diagram above, a NAT router is usually a standard switch that interconnects computers and other machines that are within a network. Hence, it ensures that the information and data exchanged guarantees security especially for external to internal connectivity but the entire process is prone to internal (LAN) manipulations. 6. Analysis of IPv6 versus IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4 was the first generation of Internet Protocol that has been used for sometime in the Internet. IPv4 utilises dot decimal notation that uses 32-bit addresses resulting in 4,294,967,296 unique addresses. On the other hand, IPv6 originated from Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and mostly is viewed as the upgrade of IPv4. Some of the advantages of using IPv6 rather than IPv4 are (Rhee 2003): It offers more addresses than the IPv4. This is because the IPv6 uses 8, 16 bits to define a 128 bit network address as compared to IPv4 32 bits addresses. Moreover, it uses hex and colon as a delimiter. The ensure of IPv6 addresses the issues of security through the use of IPSec but IPSec was optional in IPv4. Thus, IPSec is compulsory between host rather than between network-to-network. In most instances, IPv4 has to use DHCP server but IPv6 allocates permanent addresses that does not require DHCP, and thus simplifies administration and management. The header of IPv6 is fixed to 40 bits a factor that differs with header requirements of IPv4 that uses either 20, 40, and 60 bits. Thus, the Quality of Service (QoS) is good that enables utilisation of VoIP. IPv6 allows configuration and reconfiguration of addresses without accessing all clients. Moreover, it provides methods such has multicast and unicast and thus better routing. However, some disadvantages of the shift from IPv6 to IPv4 are (Stevens and Wright 2001): IPv6 is not widely deployed and thus may pose some difficulties when it comes to linking different processes and applications within a network Operating system and application support are not applicable in most cases IPv6 access is only possible through manual tunnel 7. References Axe, J., 2003. Embedded Ethernet and Internet Complete. New York: Lakeview Research Publishers. Casad, J., 2004. Sams Teach Yourself TCP/ IP in 24 hours, 3rd Ed. New York: Sam Publishers. Comer, D., 2006. Internetworking with TCP/ IP: Principles, Protocols and Architecture, 5th Ed. London: Prentice Hall Publishers. Cheswick, W. and Bellovin, S., 2003. Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker. New York: Addison Wesley Publishers. Hagino, J., 2005. IPv6 Network Programming. New York: Elsevier Publishers. Hagen, S., 2002. IPv6 Essentials. London: O’Reilly Publishers. Koz, C., 2005. The TCP/ IP Guide: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Internet Protocols Reference. New York: No Starch Press. Lammle, T., 2007. CCNA: Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide: Exam 640-802, 5th Ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons Publishers. Loshin, P., 2004. IPv6: Theory, Protocol, and Practice, 2nd Ed. London: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. Rhee, M., 2003. Internet Security: Cryptographic Principles, Algorithms and Protocols. New York: John Wiley and Sons Publishers. Stevens, R. and Wright, G. 2001. TCP/ IP Illustrated: The Protocols. New York: Addison Wesley. Read More