Source routing and transparent bridging interconnections and their performances

The interconnection between IEEE 802.5 and IEEE 802.3 LANs is carried out at layer 2 of OSI model or precisely at Medium Access Control level. Since these two LANs have many different characteristics, and are incompatible so that interoperability becomes a problem during their interconnection. IEEE 802.5 LANs use a strategy which is called Source Routing for their interconnection whereas IEEE 802.3 LANs use different strategy which is called Transparent Bridging. To overcome the problem of internetworking of these two different LANs, IEEE proses a new standard for routing strategy which is called Source Routing Transparent (SRT). This thesis studies the problems arising from Source Routing and Transparent bridging interconnections and discuss how SRT address the problems of Source Routing and Transparent Bridging. A mathematical analysis is done to analyze the performance of Source Routing and Transparent Bridging. SIMSCRIPT simulation programs are developed to conform with the mathematical analysis. The results of these two approaches agree with each other. Broadly speaking, the performance of Source Routing is deterministic whereas Transparent Bridging is random due to collision of frames at high utilization.