Connecting Devices and

Switching
BY ANIL YADAV
CONNECTING DEVICES

The five categories contain devices which can be

defined as
• Those which operate below the physical layer such as a passive hub.
• Those which operate at the physical layer (a repeater or an active
hub).
• Those which operate at the physical and data link layers (a bridge or a
two-layer switch).
• Those which operate at the physical, data link, and network layers (a
router or a three-layer switch).
• Those which can operate at all five layers (a gateway).
 A passive hub is just a connector.

It connects the wires coming from different

branches.
Passive Device
In a star-topology Ethernet LAN, a passive hub is
just a point where the signals coming from different
stations collide; the hub is the collision point.

This type of a hub is part of the media; its location

in the Internet model is below the physical layer.
 • Active Hubs operate at a Physical link layer

• An active hub is actually a multipart repeater.

• It is normally used to create connections

between stations in a physical star topology.
Active Hubs • We have seen examples of hubs in some
Ethernet implementations (lOBase-T, for example).
However, hubs can also be used to create multiple
levels of hierarchy,

• The hierarchical use of hubs removes the length

limitation of 10Base-T (100 m).
S.No. Bridge Repeater
Bridge operates at the data link layer of OSI
1. Repeater operates at the physical layer of OSI Model.
Model.

2. The complete frames is understand by bridge. Repeater do not understand complete frames.

Destination address is used in the bridge to Repeater are not able to recognize the destination
3.
determine in case to forward a frame. address.
In the network, if collision occurs in the one Repeater forward the collision from one segment to
4. segment is not forwarded to another segment another, which causes the same issue to be occured
by bridge. on all other segment in the network.
Bridge connects two network in a well organized Repeater expands the limit of the signals in the
5.
manner. network.
Filtering of the packets in network is achieved by
6. Repeater cannot performs packet filtering.
the bridge.
Bridges are relatively expensive and used to Repeater is also used to extend a LAN, but comparably
7.
extend a LAN. economical than the bridge.
 Repeaters
A repeater is a device that operates only in the physical layer

A repeater can extend the physical length of a LAN

A repeater is not a device that can connect two LANs of different protocols.

A repeater can overcome the 10Base5 Ethernet length restriction. the length of the cable is limited to 500 m. To
extend this length, we divide the cable into segments and install repeaters between segments.
The location of a repeater on a link is vital.

A repeater connects segments of a LAN.

A repeater forwards every frame; it has no filtering capability.

A repeater is a regenerator, not an amplifier.

Switch Router
❖ It connects multiple networked devices in the network. ❑ It connects multiple switches & their corresponding networks.

❖ It works on the data link layer of the OSI model. ❑ It works on the network layer of the OSI model.

❖ It is used within a LAN. ❑ It can be used in LAN or MAN.

❖ A switch cannot perform NAT or Network Address Translation. ❑ A router can perform Network Address Translation.

❖ The switch takes more time while making complicated routing ❑ A router can take a routing decision much faster than a switch.
decisions.
❖ It provides only port security. ❑ It provides security measures to protect the network from security
threats.
❖ It comes in the category of semi-Intelligent devices. ❑ It is known as an Intelligent network device.

❖ It works in either half or full-duplex transmission mode. ❑ It works in the full-duplex transmission mode. However, we can
change it manually to work on half-duplex mode.

❖ It sends information from one device to another in the form of ❑ It sends information from one network to another network in the
Frames (for L2 switch) and the form of packets (for L3 switch). form of data packets.

❖ Switches can only work with the wired network. ❑ Routers can work with both wired & wireless networks.

❖ Switches are available with different ports, such as 8, 16, 24, 48, and ❑ A router contains two ports by default, such as Fast Ethernet Port. But
64. we can also add the serial ports explicitly.

❖ It uses the CAM (Content Addressable Memory) table for the source ❑ It uses the routing table to get the best route for the destination IP.
and destination MAC address.
 A bridge is a connecting device that operates in the
physical and data link layers of the Internet model.

A transparent bridge can forward and filter frames

and automatically build its forwarding table.

A bridge can use the spanning tree algorithm to

Bridge create a loopless topology.

A bridge has a table used in filtering decisions.

A bridge does not change the physical (MAC)

addresses in a frame.
Features Router Gateway
Definition A Router is a networking layer system used to manage A gateway is simply a device or hardware that acts as a "gate" between
and forward data packets to computer networks. the networks. It could also be defined as a node that acts as an entry
for other network nodes.
Working Usually, routers run on the 3rd layer of the protocol and Gateway interprets the network system as endpoints from one packet
Principle transmit the packets from one system to another. A to another.
router chooses the network's path to transport the data
packets.
Hosting It is available only to dedicated applications. It is hosted on the dedicated application, physical servers, and virtual
applications.

Networks It routes the data packets via similar networks. It connects two dissimilar networks.

Deployment It is deployed on the router hardware in a specific The gateway is deployed as the virtual or physical server or the specific
appliance. appliance.

OSI Layer It can operate only on 3 and 4 layers. It can operate only on the 5 layers.
Dynamic Router supports dynamic routing. Gateway doesn't support dynamic routing.
Routing
Associated The router is also called a wireless router and an Internet The gateway is also called a gateway router, proxy server, and voice
terms router. gateway.
Component's The router operates by installing different routing data The gateway works by distinguishing between the network structure
Operating for different networks, and the destination address is and the components available outside the network.
Process based on traffic.
Layer 2 Switch Layer 3 Switch

Operate on layer 2 (Data link) of OSI model. Operate on layer 3 (Network Layer) of OSI model.

Send “frames” to destination on the basis of MAC

Route Packet with help of IP address
address.

Can perform functioning of both 2 layer and 3 layer

Work with MAC address only
switch

Mostly Used to implement VLAN (Virtual Local area

Used to reduce traffic on local network.
network)

Quite fast as they do not look at the Layer 3 portion Takes time to examine data packets before sending
of the data packets. them to their destination

It has single broadcast domain It has multiple broadcast domain.

Can communicate within a network only. Can communicate within or outside network.
Switching
A switched network consists of a series of interlinked nodes, called
switches
 A circuit-switched network is made of a set
ofswitches connected by physical links, in
which each link is divided into n channels

CIRCUIT- In circuit switching, the resources need to

be reserved during the setup phase; the
SWITCHED resources remain dedicated for the entire
duration of data transfer until the teardown

NETWORKS phase.

Switching at the physical layer in the

traditional telephone network uses the
circuit-switching approach.
Packet Switching Network

This means that there is no

In packet switching, there is
no resource allocation for a
packet.
reserved bandwidth on the
Resources are allocated on
links, and there is no
demand.
scheduled processing time
for each packet.

We can divide today's Packet-switched networks

networks into three broad
categories:
• circuit-switched networks
• packet-switched networks
• message-switched network
can also be divided into two
subcategories:
• virtual-circuit networks
• datagram networks
 In a packet-switched network, there is no resource
reservation; resources are allocated on demand.

A switch in a datagram network uses a routing table that is

based on the destination address.

DATAGRAM The destination address in the header of a packet in a

datagram network remains the same during the entire
NETWORKS journey of the packet.
Switching in the Internet is done by using the datagram
approach to packet switching at the network layer.
 In virtual-circuit switching, all packets belonging
to the same source and destination travel the
same path; but the packets may arrive at the
destination with different delays if resource
allocation is on demand.

VIRTUAL- Switching at the data link layer in a switched

CIRCUIT WAN is normally implemented by using virtual-
circuit techniques.

NETWORKS
A virtual-circuit network is a cross between a
circuit-switched network and a datagram
network. It has some characteristics of both.
 Summary
A switched network consists of a series of interlinked nodes, called switches. Traditionally' three methods of switching have been important:
circuit switching, packet switching, and message switching.

A circuit-switched network is made of a set of switches connected by physical links, in which each link is divided into n channels. Circuit switching
takes place at the physical layer. In circuit switching, the resources need to be reserved during the setup phase; the resources remain dedicated
for the entire duration of data transfer phase until the teardown phase.

In a datagram network, each packet is treated independently of all others. Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams. There are no
setup or teardown phases.

A virtual-circuit network is a cross between a circuit-switched network and a datagram network. It has some characteristics of both.

Circuit switching uses either of two technologies: the space-division switch or the time-division switch.

A switch in a packet-switched network has a different structure from a switch used in a circuit-switched network.We can say that a packet switch
has four types of components: input ports, output ports, a routing processor, and switching fabric.