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Switching

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Sipu Choudhury
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8 views

Switching

Uploaded by

Sipu Choudhury
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is Switching?

What is Switching?
• In computer networking, Switching is the process of
transferring data packets from one device to another in a
network, or from one network to another, using specific
devices called switches.
• A computer user experiences switching all the time for
example, accessing the Internet from your computer device,
whenever a user requests a webpage to open, the request is
processed through switching of data packets only.
• Switching takes place at the Data Link layer of the OSI
Model. This means that after the generation of data packets in
the Physical Layer, switching is the immediate next process
in data communication.
• A switch is a dedicated piece of computer hardware that
facilitates the process of switching i.e., incoming data packets
and transferring them to their destination.
• A switch works at the Data Link layer of the OSI Model.
• A switch primarily handles the incoming data packets from a
source computer or network and decides the appropriate port
through which the data packets will reach their target
computer or network.
• A switch decides the port through which a data packet shall
pass with the help of its destination MAC(Media Access
Control) Address. A switch does this effectively by maintaining
a switching table, (also known as forwarding table).
• A network switch is more efficient than a network Hub or
repeater because it maintains a switching table, which
simplifies its task and reduces congestion on a network, which
effectively improves the performance of the network.
Process of Switching
1. Frame Reception:
The switch receives a data frame or packet from a computer
connected to its ports.
2. MAC Address Extraction:
The switch reads the header of the data frame and collects the
destination MAC Address from it.
3. MAC Address Table Lookup:
Once the switch has retrieved the MAC Address, it performs a
lookup in its Switching table to find a port that leads to the MAC
Address of the data frame.
4. Forwarding Decision and Switching Table Update:
If the switch matches the destination MAC Address of the
frame to the MAC address in its switching table, it forwards
the data frame to the respective port. However, if the
destination MAC Address does not exist in its forwarding
table, it follows the flooding process, in which it sends the
data frame to all its ports except the one it came from and
records all the MAC Addresses to which the frame was
delivered. This way, the switch finds the new MAC Address
and updates its forwarding table.
5. Frame Transition:
Once the destination port is found, the switch sends the data
frame to that port and forwards it to its target
computer/network.
Types of Switching
Message Switching:
• This is an older switching technique that has become
obsolete.
• In message switching technique, the entire data
block/message is forwarded across the entire network thus,
making it highly inefficient.
Circuit Switching:
• In this type of switching, a connection is established between
the source and destination beforehand.
• This connection receives the complete bandwidth of the
network until the data is transferred completely.
This approach is better than message switching as it does not
involve sending data to the entire network, instead of its
destination only.
Packet Switching:
• This technique requires the data to be broken down into
smaller components, data frames, or packets.
• These data frames are then transferred to their destinations
according to the available resources in the network at a
particular time.
This switching type is used in modern computers and even
the Internet. Here, each data frame contains additional
information about the destination and other information
required for proper transfer through network components.
Datagram Packet Switching:
• In Datagram Packet switching, each data frame is taken as an
individual entity and thus, they are processed separately.
Here, no connection is established before data transmission
occurs.
• Although this approach provides flexibility in data transfer, it
may cause a loss of data frames or late delivery of the data
frames.
Virtual-Circuit Packet Switching:
• In Virtual-Circuit Packet switching, a logical connection
between the source and destination is made before
transmitting any data.
• These logical connections are called virtual circuits. Each
data frame follows these logical paths and provides a reliable
way of transmitting data with less chance of data loss.

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