Overview of How DNS (Domain Name System) Works
This article presents a high-level overview of how DNS works. it focuses on the hostname-to-IP-address translation service. More ...
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 ...
Computer Networking Devices
Computer networking devices, also known as networking hardware or network equipment are components connected to the network by network media. This article describes the function of the hub, bridge, switch, router, gateway, multilayer switch, and brouter. More ...
Understanding the Basics of All-Optical Switching
All-optical switching is a process by which light in the form of digital communication signals is routed from one transmission channel to another without intermediate conversion to another format. More ...
What Are Pseudo-Wires?
Pseudo-wire is a mechanism used in networking and telecommunications to emulate various services using packet switched networks with technologies such as Ethernet, MPLS (Multi Protocol Labelled Switching) and IP (Internet Protocol). 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 ...
Difference Between Unmanaged, Web Smart and Managed Switch
A network switch is used to route data over a communication network. There are four major types of a switches. It can either be an unmanaged switch, a managed switch, a smart switch or an enterprise managed switch. Each kind of switch has its own strengths and weaknesses. More ...
Transparent Bridging and MAC Address Filtering
A bridge uses a database to send frames across network segments. The database is a list of nodes MAC addresses and their locations on the network. To send a frame between two segments a bridge reads a frame's destination MAC address and decides to either forward or filter. More ...
Data Center Management Best Practices
The use of an integrated best practices approach to data center management involves efficient management of resources while still minimizing the costs of all the different interrelated competing factors that require attention. More ...
The Complete Guide to Fiber Optic Connectors
There have been over 100 different fiber optic connectors developed over the years but a select few have stood the test of time and beat out their competition. In this article we talk about the most common. More ...
Cisco Switching Fundamentals
Newer switches now use ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) for high speed hardware switching of packets. This results in much faster performance than packets processed in software. More ...
Network Interface Cards (NIC)
Every entity on a network, a PC, printer, router, etc., that needs to communicate with other devices must have a NIC if it is to communicate over the network. NIC functionality is now often integrated into the motherboard chipset or implemented with a dedicated Ethernet chip on the motherboard. More ...
