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A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, Ethernet switch, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge [1]) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destination device.
Historically, the main reason for purchasing hubs rather than switches was their price. By the early 2000s, there was little price difference between a hub and a low-end switch. [11] Hubs can still be useful in special circumstances: For inserting a protocol analyzer into a network connection, a hub is an alternative to a network tap or port ...
A hub provides a point-to-multipoint (or simply multipoint) circuit in which all connected client nodes share the network bandwidth. A switch on the other hand provides a series of point-to-point circuits, via microsegmentation, which allows each client node to have a dedicated circuit and the added advantage of having full-duplex connections ...
Hubs have a significantly larger number of links in comparison with other nodes in the network. The number of links for a hub in a scale-free network is much higher than for the biggest node in a random network, keeping the size N of the network and average degree <k> constant. The existence of hubs is the biggest difference between random ...
A network switch is a device that forwards and filters OSI layer 2 datagrams between ports based on the destination MAC address in each frame. [16] A switch is distinct from a hub in that it only forwards the frames to the physical ports involved in the communication rather than all ports connected.
A switch allows for many conversations to occur simultaneously. Before switches, networks based on hubs data could only allow transmission in one direction at a time, this was called half-duplex. By using a switch this restriction is removed; full-duplex communication is maintained and the network is collision free. [2]
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Physical connections are made between network nodes and, usually, various network infrastructure devices (hubs, switches, routers) by various types of copper cables or optical fiber. 802.3 standards support the IEEE 802.1 network architecture. 802.3 also defines a LAN access method using carrier-sense multiple access with collision detection ...