Switch — the smart computer networking device!

Advent of switch

Pallavi Sengupta
Aug 25, 2017 · 2 min read

Key Features

  • A Switch works at layer 2 and layer 3
  • It learns the MAC address of the devices attached to it
  • It uses a CAM(Content Addressable Memory)table for maintaining the data of all devices’ MAC addresses
  • It works in full duplex mode transmission mode i.e. all devices attached to it can send and receive at the same time.

Advent of switch —Single broadcast domain, multiple collision domain

  • A broadcast domain is a logical division of network in which all nodes can reach each other by broadcasting at the Data Link layer
  • In Simple Ethernet (without switches and bridges) , each device can listen to all other devices in the network i.e. they use a shared transmission system.With more and more devices, it gets noisy.
  • Herein,Switch comes as a boon!!… Switch provides a segmentation at the layer 2 (Data Link layer) i.e. It segments the collision domain into personal domain(for each node). We can then connect a bridge to connect the segments.
Single broadcast domain, multiple collision domain
  • Thereby switches act as buffers, receiving and analyzing the frames from each connected network segment. Frames destined for a specific node,on a different segment, are sent only to that segment
  • Only broadcast frames are forwarded to all other segments. This reduces unnecessary traffic and collisions.

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