Access Points and Wireless LAN Controller
An access point is a network device that creates a wireless LAN (WLAN) and might also connect to a wired router to allow wireless devices to connect to the wired LAN. More ...
How Do Fiber Optic Couplers Work and How are They Made?
Fiber optic couplers are needed for tapping (monitoring the signal quality) or more complex telecommunication systems which require more than simple point-to-point connections, such as ring architectures, bus architectures and star architectures. More ...
Static Versus Dynamic Routing
Routers direct traffic between networks or subnetworks. With static routing a network administrator manually creates the router's routing table. With dynamic routing the router learn about networks use routing protocols like RIP, RIP2, EIGRP, OSPF, or BGP. More ...
ISP Multihoming Explained
Multihoming is essentially a method whereby a company can connect to more than one ISP at the same time. The concept was born out of the need to protect Internet access in the event of either an ISP link failure or an ISP internal failure. More ...
Wireless Networks
A wireless LAN (WLAN or WiFi) provides network connectivity by using radio waves rather than cable. Wireless devices can communicate with each other or they can communicate through a wireless access point (WAP) to a wired network. More ...
Network Broadcast Storms
When a switch receives a broadcast frame the switch floods the frame out all switch ports other than the port on which the frame was received. Because a layer 2 frame does not have a TTL (Time to live) field, a broadcast frame endlessly circulates through the Layer 2 topology. More ...
Ethernet Bridges
Unlike a hub, which blindly forwards received bits, a bridge makes intelligent forwarding decisions based on the destination MAC address in a frame. More ...
Network Hubs
A hub lives at Layer 1 of the OSI model, so it does not make forwarding decisions. Instead, a hub receives bits on one port and then retransmits those bits out all other ports. Because of this a hub is sometimes called a repeater. More ...
Wireless Network Vlans - How to Implement Wireless Vlans
Wireless access points operate as bridges with no routing defined anywhere on the wireless network segment. VLANs are defined on the wired switches and mapped with specific SSIDs at each access point. The wireless client associates with a specific SSID which in turn will map client with membership in a specific VLAN. More ...
Token Ring Network
In 1984 IBM invented Token Ring. The token ring network may be setup with a physical ring topology, but is usually implemented in a physical star topology. The central device of the token ring is called a Multistation Access Unit. More ...
Multilayer Switch
A network switch operates at layer 2 the OSI model. A multilayer switch also works at layer 3 or higher, all the way up to layer 6 of the OSI model. More ...
Trunking, Bonding, Aggregation; What Does it Mean?
Each port on a network switch would be connected to one network device, such as a computer. But to connect a server you need higher bandwidth. For this purpose you could combine multiple Ethernet channels into one. More ...
The Difference Between a Hub and a Router
For someone who needs a quick clarification on the matter, a hub combines all linked computers or workstations into a network, while router links two separate and distinct networks to each other. More ...
