Switch:- Function

In this section we will cover the following questions

• what is switch?
• what are the  basic functions of switch?
• what are the type of switches?

In tradition network, Hub are used for multiplying users in the network, which are connected via multiple networking devices like computer, printer, switch, hub, bridge etc to share resources and data transfer take place on physical layer..

A little more advance device which is known as Network Bridge which is used to connect multiple network segment and avoid the network congestion, bridge is an intelligent device which filter the traffic based on the MAC address which means it works on the layer 2 of OSI model, Network bridge is two port device.

Switch

• A Switch is  a multi-port bridge, that means the switch is  a bridge having multi-port, 
• The working of switch and bridge is same i.e it also filter packet based on MAC address.
• Switches do the job of routing as well switching , 
• The switches, which do the job of routing are known as the Multi-layer switch.
• So switch can do a job of layer 2 as well as layer 3

Function:-

• High speed data transfer take place ( 10 mbps to 1000 mbps)
• switches support full duplex communication.
• Switches can simultaneously switch multiple messages. 
• Switch receive the packet in the form of frame and forward to the destination port based on the MAC address.
• That means the packet is forwarded to the single required port no. and not to all ports.
• All ports of the switch are in the same broadcast domain but 
• switches create the separate collision domain for each port,
• Switches provide dedication communication among users for example if multiple user are connected with the switch from port no. 1, 2, 3, 4 etc and the pc connected with port 1 want to send data to pc connected with port 4, then the communication will happen only between port 1 and port 4, data will not be send to port 3 and port 4.
• Switches can be used to provide collision-free networking, 
• Switches induce less latency than other segmentation solutions. 

Type of Switch

• cut through switch
• Store and forward switch
• Fragment free switch
• Adaptive switching

Cut through switch

• These are the fastest switches because 
• No error check method applied 
• forwarded frame may have errors because 
• It Just forward the received  packed based on destination MAC address.

Store and forward Switch

• It is the  type of switch which have buffer memory 
• store the packet in its buffer memory and check the error before forward again
• so these are slower then other switches (because of buffering time)
• But provide more accurate data because forwards verified data.

 Fragment free switch 

• This type of switching is the mixed form of above both switching 
• checks the 1st 64 byte of the frame which contain the addressing information. 
• error checking done at destination 

Adaptive switching

• it is the auto deducted method of switching and adopt any one of the above method 

Note :- Now in some consecutive section we will try to cover almost everything in about switch and its  function.

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