Computer Network Switches
By Stephen Bucaro
A bridge or router may be referred to as a "switch" because it uses information in the
data packet to choose a path from one network segment to another. A bridge may be referred to
as a "layer 2 switch" because it uses information from layer 2, the Data Link layer of
the OSI model. A router may be referred to as a "layer 3 switch" because it uses information
from layer 3, the Network layer of the OSI model. A network device that uses a higher layer of
the OSI model may be referred to as a "layer 4 switch", and so on.
More Networking Protocols and Standards:
• IPv6 Flow Label Field
• The OSI Data Link Layer
• IP Addressing and Subnetting
• IPv6 Dynamic Address Allocation
• IPv6 Multicast Addresses
• T-Carrier
• Network Gateways
• The TCP/IP protocol Datagram Format
• Video - Transport Layer (Layer 4) of OSI Networking Model
• IPv4 Datagram Fields
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