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An Ethernet hub, active hub, network hub, repeater hub, multiport repeater,
or simply hub
The main work of Hub is to receive incoming data signals, amplify them in the
form of electrical signals and then send them to each connected device. A
Hub may contain a number of ports. Minimum amount of ports that a hub can
have is 4 and it can have up to 24 ports for connecting various devices and
peripherals to it.
1. When referring to a network, a hub is the most basic networking device
that connects multiple computers or other network devices together. Unlike a
network switch or router, a network hub has no routing tables or intelligence
on where to send information and broadcasts all network data across each
connection. Most hubs can detect basic network errors such as collisions, but
having all information broadcast to multiple ports can be a security risk and
cause bottlenecks.
2. In general, a hub refers to a hardware device that enables multiple devices
or connections to be connected to a computer. Another example besides the
one given above is a USB hub, which allows multiple USB devices to be
connected to one computer, even though that computer may only have a few
USB connections. The picture to the right is an example of a USB hub.
A common connection point for devices in a network. Hubs are commonly
used to connect segments of a LAN. A hub contains multiple ports. When a
packet arrives at one port, it is copied to the other ports so that all segments
of the LAN can see all packets.
What Hubs Do
Hubs and switches serve as a central connection for all of your network
equipment and handles a data type known as frames. Frames carry your
data. When a frame is received, it is amplified and then transmitted on to the
port of the destination PC.
In a hub, a frame is passed along or "broadcast" to every one of its ports. It
doesn't matter that the frame is only destined for one port. The hub has no
way of distinguishing which port a frame should be sent to. Passing it along to
every port ensures that it will reach its intended destination. This places a lot
of traffic on the network and can lead to poor network response times.
A passive hub serves simply as a conduit for the data, enabling it to go from
one device (or segment) to another. So-called intelligent hubs include
additional features that enables an administrator to monitor the traffic
passing through the hub and to configure each port in the hub. Intelligent
hubs are also called manageable hubs.
A third type of hub, called a switching hub, actually reads the destination
address of each packet and then forwards the packet to the correct port.
switch
A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, officially MAC
bridge) is a computer networking device that connects devices together on a
computer network, by using packet switching to receive, process and forward
data to the destination device.
A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, officially MAC
bridge[1]) is a computer networking device that connects devices together on
a computer network, by using packet switching to receive, process and
forward data to the destination device. Unlike less advanced network hubs, a
network switch forwards data only to one or multiple devices that need to
receive it, rather than broadcasting the same data out of each of its ports.[2]
There are specialized applications in which a network hub can be useful, such
as copying traffic to multiple network sensors. High-end network switches
usually have a feature called port mirroring that provides the same
functionality.
By the early 2000s, there was little price difference between a hub and a lowend switch.[12]
Layer 2[edit]
A network bridge, operating at the data link layer, may interconnect a small
number of devices in a home or the office. This is a trivial case of bridging, in
which the bridge learns the MAC address of each connected device.
Classic bridges may also interconnect using a spanning tree protocol that
disables links so that the resulting local area network is a tree without loops.
In contrast to routers, spanning tree bridges must have topologies with only
one active path between two points. The older IEEE 802.1D spanning tree
protocol could be quite slow, with forwarding stopping for 30 seconds while
the spanning tree reconverged. A Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol was
introduced as IEEE 802.1w. The newest standard Shortest path bridging (IEEE
802.1aq) is the next logical progression and incorporates all the older
Spanning Tree Protocols (IEEE 802.1D STP, IEEE 802.1w RSTP, IEEE 802.1s
MSTP) that blocked traffic on all but one alternative path. IEEE 802.1aq
(Shortest Path Bridging SPB) allows all paths to be active with multiple equal
cost paths, provides much larger layer 2 topologies (up to 16 million
compared to the 4096 VLANs limit),[13] faster convergence, and improves
the use of the mesh topologies through increase bandwidth and redundancy
between all devices by allowing traffic to load share across all paths of a
mesh network.[14][15][16][17]
While layer 2 switch remains more of a marketing term than a technical term,
[citation needed] the products that were introduced as "switches" tended to
use microsegmentation and full duplex to prevent collisions among devices
connected to Ethernet. By using an internal forwarding plane much faster
than any interface, they give the impression of simultaneous paths among
multiple devices. 'Non-blocking' devices use a forwarding plane or equivalent
method fast enough to allow full duplex traffic for each port simultaneously.
Once a bridge learns the addresses of its connected nodes, it forwards data
link layer frames using a layer 2 forwarding method. There are four
forwarding methods a bridge can use, of which the second through fourth
method were performance-increasing methods when used on "switch"
products with the same input and output port bandwidths:
Store and forward: the switch buffers and verifies each frame before
forwarding it; a frame is received in its entirety before it is forwarded.
Cut through: the switch starts forwarding after the frame's destination
address is received. When the outgoing port is busy at the time, the switch
Layer 3[edit]
Within the confines of the Ethernet physical layer, a layer-3 switch can
perform some or all of the functions normally performed by a router. The
most common layer-3 capability is awareness of IP multicast through IGMP
snooping. With this awareness, a layer-3 switch can increase efficiency by
delivering the traffic of a multicast group only to ports where the attached
device has signaled that it wants to listen to that group.
Layer 4[edit]
While the exact meaning of the term layer-4 switch is vendor-dependent, it
almost always starts with a capability for network address translation, but
then adds some type of load distribution based on TCP sessions.[18]
Layer 7[edit]
Layer-7 switches may distribute the load based on uniform resource locators
(URLs), or by using some installation-specific technique to recognize
application-level transactions. A layer-7 switch may include a web cache and
participate in a content delivery network (CDN).
Configuration options[edit]
Unmanaged switches these switches have no configuration interface or
options. They are plug and play. They are typically the least expensive
switches, and therefore often used in a small office/home office environment.
Unmanaged switches can be desktop or rack mounted.
Managed switches these switches have one or more methods to modify the
operation of the switch. Common management methods include: a
command-line interface (CLI) accessed via serial console, telnet or Secure
Shell, an embedded Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agent
allowing management from a remote console or management station, or a
web interface for management from a web browser. Examples of
configuration changes that one can do from a managed switch include:
enabling features such as Spanning Tree Protocol or port mirroring, setting
port bandwidth, creating or modifying virtual LANs (VLANs), etc. Two subclasses of managed switches are marketed today:
Smart (or intelligent) switches these are managed switches with a limited
set of management features. Likewise "web-managed" switches are switches
which fall into a market niche between unmanaged and managed. For a price
much lower than a fully managed switch they provide a web interface (and
usually no CLI access) and allow configuration of basic settings, such as
VLANs, port-bandwidth and duplex.[20]
Enterprise managed (or fully managed) switches these have a full set of
management features, including CLI, SNMP agent, and web interface. They
may have additional features to manipulate configurations, such as the ability
to display, modify, backup and restore configurations. Compared with smart
switches, enterprise switches have more features that can be customized or
optimized, and are generally more expensive than smart switches. Enterprise
switches are typically found in networks with larger number of switches and
connections, where centralized management is a significant savings in
administrative time and effort. A stackable switch is a version of enterprisemanaged switch.
Advantages :
1) Reduces the number of Broadcast domains
2) Supports VLAN's which can help in Logical segmentation
Disadvantages :
ROUTER