Important Reasons for Use Flow Control in Data Link Layer
- Preventing Data Loss: in case of data link layer Flow control ensures that the receiver does not get overwhelmed by an excessive amount of data from the sender. By regulating the rate of data transmission, flow control helps prevent data loss that can occur when the receiver’s buffer becomes full and cannot accommodate any more incoming data.
- Maintaining Synchronization: Flow control helps maintain synchronization between the transmitter and receiver. It ensures that the sender does not transmit data faster than the receiver can process it. By regulating the flow of data, flow control ensures that the transmitter and receiver remain in synchronization, avoiding issues such as frame misalignment or timing errors.
- Matching Speeds between Devices: In some cases where the transmitter and receiver operate at different speeds, flow control helps to match their data transfer rates. For example, if the sender is transmitting data at a higher speed than the receiver can handle, flow control mechanisms slow down the transmission rate to match the receiver’s capabilities.
- Buffer Management: Flow control takes into account the available buffer space at the receiver. By controlling the rate of data transmission based on the receiver’s buffer capacity, flow control prevents buffer overflow situations where incoming data exceeds the receiver’s storage capacity. This ensures that no data is lost due to buffer overflow.
- Back pressure Indication: Flow control mechanisms in the data link layer can provide back pressure indication to the sender, signaling the sender to slow down or pause data transmission temporarily. This feedback helps the sender avoid overwhelming the receiver and allows the receiver to catch up with the incoming data.
Overall, flow control in the data link layer is crucial for managing the flow of data between sender and receiver, preventing data loss, maintaining synchronization, matching speeds between devices, and ensuring reliable and efficient data transmission.
Why Flow Control is Used in Both Data Link Layer and Network Layer?
OSI model was established in1947 by international standard organization is a multinational body dedicated to worldwide agreement on international standards.ISO standard covers all the aspects of network communications is the Open System Interconnection model.It was introduced in the late 1070s. an open system is a set of protocols that allows any two different systems to communicate regardless of their underlying architecture.The purpose of the OSI model is to show how to facilitate communication between different systems without requiring changes to the logic of the underlying hardware and software.