What is the difference between an Ethernet hub and switch?

Although hubs and switches both glue the PCs in a network together, a switch is
more expensive and a network built with switches is generally considered faster than
one built with hubs. Why?

When a hub receives a packet (chunk) of data (a

frame in Ethernet lingo) at one of its ports from a PC
on the network, it transmits (repeats) the packet to
all of its ports and, thus, to all of the other PCs on
the network. If two or more PCs on the network try
to send packets at the same time a collision is said
to occur. When that happens all of the PCs have to
go through a routine to resolve the conflict. The
process is prescribed in the Ethernet Carrier Sense
Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD)
protocol. Each Ethernet Adapter has both a receiver and a transmitter. If the
adapters didn't have to listen with their receivers for collisions they would be able to
send data at the same time they are receiving it (full duplex). Because they have to
operate at half duplex (data flows one way at a time) and a hub retransmits data
from one PC to all of the PCs, the maximum bandwidth is 100 Mhz and that
bandwidth is shared by all of the PC's connected to the hub. The result is when a
person using a computer on a hub downloads a large file or group of files from
another computer the network becomes congested. In a 10 Mhz 10Base-T network
the affect is to slow the network to nearly a crawl. The affect on a small, 100 Mbps
(million bits per second), 5-port network is not as
significant.

Two computers can be connected directly together

in an Ethernet with a crossover cable. A crossover
cable doesn't have a collision problem. It hardwires
the Ethernet transmitter on one computer to the
receiver on the other. Most 100BASE-TX Ethernet
Adapters can detect when listening for collisions is
not required with a process known as auto-
negotiation and will operate in a full duplex mode when it is permitted. The result is a
crossover cable doesn't have delays caused by collisions, data can be sent in both
directions simultaneously, the maximum available bandwidth is 200 Mbps, 100 Mbps
each way, and there are no other PC's with which the bandwidth must be shared.

An Ethernet switch automatically divides the network into multiple segments, acts as
a high-speed, selective bridge between the segments, and supports simultaneous
connections of multiple pairs of computers which don't compete with other pairs of
computers for network bandwidth. It accomplishes this by maintaining a table of
each destination address and its port. When the switch receives a packet, it reads
the destination address from the header information in the packet, establishes a
temporary connection between the source and destination ports, sends the packet
on its way, and then terminates the connection.
Picture a switch as making multiple temporary crossover cable connections between
pairs of computers (the cables are actually straight-thru cables; the crossover
function is done inside the switch). High-speed electronics in the switch
automatically connect the end of one cable (source port) from a sending computer to
the end of another cable (destination port) going to the receiving computer on a per
packet basis. Multiple connections like this can occur simultaneously. It's as simple
as that. And like a crossover cable between two PCs, PC's on an Ethernet switch do
not share the transmission media, do not experience collisions or have to listen for
them, can operate in a full-duplex mode, have bandwidth as high as 200 Mbps, 100
Mbps each way, and do not share this bandwidth with other PCs on the switch. In
short, a switch is "more better."

What's the difference between a Hub, a Switch and a Router?

In a word: intelligence.

Hubs, switches, and routers are all devices that let you connect one or more
computers to other computers, networked devices, or to other networks. Each has
two or more connectors called ports into which you plug in the cables to make the
connection. Varying degrees of magic happen inside the device, and therein lies the
difference. I often see the terms misused so let's clarify what each one really means.

A hub is typically the least expensive, least intelligent, and least complicated of the
three. Its job is very simple: anything that comes in one port is sent out to the
others. That's it. Every computer connected to the hub "sees" everything that every
other computer on the hub sees. The hub itself is blissfully ignorant of the data
being transmitted. For years, simple hubs have been quick and easy ways to connect
computers in small networks.

A switch does essentially what a hub does but more efficiently. By paying attention
to the traffic that comes across it, it can "learn" where particular addresses are. For
example, if it sees traffic from machine A coming in on port 2, it now knows that
machine A is connected to that port and that traffic to machine A needs to only be
sent to that port and not any of the others. The net result of using a switch over a
hub is that most of the network traffic only goes where it needs to rather than to
every port. On busy networks this can make the network significantly faster.

"Varying degrees of magic happen inside the device, and

therein lies the difference."
A router is the smartest and most complicated of the bunch. Routers come in all
shapes and sizes from the small four-port broadband routers that are very popular
right now to the large industrial strength devices that drive the internet itself. A
simple way to think of a router is as a computer that can be programmed to
understand, possibly manipulate, and route the data its being asked to handle. For
example, broadband routers include the ability to "hide" computers behind a type of
firewall which involves slightly modifying the packets of network traffic as they
traverse the device. All routers include some kind of user interface for configuring
how the router will treat traffic. The really large routers include the equivalent of a
full-blown programming language to describe how they should operate as well as
the ability to communicate with other routers to describe or determine the best way
to get network traffic from point A to point B.

A quick note on one other thing that you'll often see mentioned with these devices
and that's network speed. Most devices now are capable of both 10mps (10 mega-
bits, or million bits, per second) as well as 100mbs and will automatically detect the
speed. If the device is labeled with only one speed then it will only be able to
communicate with devices that also support that speed. 1000mbs or "gigabit"
devices are starting to slowly become more common as well. Similarly many devices
now also include 802.11b or 802.11g wireless transmitters that simply act like
additional ports to the device.

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Bridge

A bridge is used to break larger network segments into smaller network segments. It
works much like a repeater, but because a bridge works solely with Layer 2 protocols
and layer 2 MAC sub layer addresses, it operates at the Data Link layer.

A bridge uses the MAC address to perform its tasks, including:

• Monitoring network traffic

• Identifying the destination and source addresses of a message
• Creating a routing table that identifies MAC addresses to the network segment on
which they're located
• Sending messages to only the network segment on which its destination MAC
address is located

Know the following about bridges:

• Bridges operate at Layer 2 and usually do not reduce broadcasts because a bridge
forwards broadcast packets to all of its ports except the port on which the broadcast
packet arrived. On the other hand, a router usually blocks broadcast packets.
• Bridges expand the distance of an Ethernet network because each segment can
be built to the maximum distance.
• Bridges filter some traffic based upon MAC addresses.
• Bandwidth is used more efficiently.
• Local traffic is kept local.

Switch

In networking, a switch is a device responsible for multiple functions such as filtering,

flooding, and sending frames. Broadly, a switch is any electronic/mechanical device
allowing connections to be established as needed and terminated if no longer
necessary.

Layer-2 switching is shareware based, which means it uses the MAC address from
the host's NIC cards to filter the network. Layer-2 switches are fast because they do
not look at the Network layer header information, looking instead at the frame's
hardware addresses before deciding to either forward the frame or drop it.

Three Switch Functions at layer 2

1. Address learning - Layer-2 switches and bridges remember the source

hardware address of each frame received on an interface and enter this
information into a MAC database
2. Forward/filter decisions - When a frame is received on an interface, the
switch looks at the destination hardware address and finds the exit interface in
the MAC database
3. Loop avoidance - If multiple connections between switches are created for
redundancy, network loops can occur. The Spanning-Tree Protocol (STP) is
used to stop network loops and allow redundancy.

Bridging versus LAN Switching

Layer-2 switches are really just bridges with more ports. However, there are some
important differences you should be aware of:

• Bridges are software based, while switches are hardware based because they
use an ASICs chip to help make filtering decisions.
• Bridges can only have one spanning-tree instance per bridge, while switches
can have many.
• Bridges can only have up to 16 ports, whereas a switch can have hundreds.

Five steps of encapsulation:

 1. User information is converted into data.
User Information into 2. Data is converted into segments for transport across the network.
Data 3. Segments are converted into segments for transport across the
Data into Segments network.
Segments into Packets 4. Packets and datagrams are converted into frames and the Data Link
Packets into Frames header is added.
Frames to Bits 5. The data in the frames is converted into bits for transmission over
the physical media.

Five steps of encapsulation that occur when a user uses a browser to open a Web
page:
1. The user requests that the browser open a Web page.
2. The transport layer adds a header indicating that an HTTP process is requested.
3. The Network layer puts a source and destination address into its packet header
that helps indicate the path across the network.
4. The Data Link layer frame puts in the hardware addresses of both the source
node and the next directly connected network device.
5. The frame is converted into bits for transmission over the media.

Data encapsulation by OSI Layer:

OSI Layer Encapsulation

Transport Segment
Network Packet
Data Link Frame
Physical Bits

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