User’s Manual
18
Switch
A switch solves the collision problem by working as a
single domain. A Switch maps the physical Ethernet
addresses of the nodes residing on each network segment
and then allows only the necessary traffic to pass through.
Packets of data are transmitted along with the destination
and source segment.
There are two basic architectures of LAN switches, cut-
through and store-and-forward. Cut-through switches
consider only the destination address before forwarding it
on to its destination segment, but store-and-forward
architecture accepts and then analyzes the entire packet
before forwarding. This allows the switch to stop certain
packet errors from propagating through the network. The
store-and forward switch eliminates redundant or
corrupted packets, thus increasing the efficiency of the
network transmission.