Networking Communication
Sliding window algorithms are methods of flow control for network data transfer. The data link layer uses a sender to have more than one acknowledgment packet at a time, which improves network throughput. Both the sender and receiver maintain a finite-size buffer to hold outgoing and incoming packets from the other side. Every packet sent by the sender must be acknowledged by the receiver. The sender maintains a timer for every packet sent, and any packet unacknowledged at a certain time is resent. The sender may send a whole window of packets before receiving an acknowledgment for the first packet in the window. This results in higher transfer rates, as the sender may send multiple packets without waiting for each packet’s acknowledgment. The receiver advertises a window size that tells the sender not to fill up the receiver buffers.
Piggybacking in Computer Networks
Pre-Requisite: Transmission Mode in Computer Networks
Piggybacking is the technique of delaying outgoing acknowledgment and attaching it to the next data packet.
When a data frame arrives, the receiver waits and does not send the control frame (acknowledgment) back immediately. The receiver waits until its network layer moves to the next data packet. Acknowledgment is associated with this outgoing data frame. Thus the acknowledgment travels along with the next data frame. This technique in which the outgoing acknowledgment is delayed temporarily is called Piggybacking.
In this article, we will cover the overview of networking communication and mainly focus on the concept of piggybacking in networks. And we will also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using piggybacking in networks. Finally, we will see the conclusion. Let’s discuss them one by one.