Router, Switch ; what are they and How they work?

Question

Big guys in networking, please easy on me. and make it simple for flah to understand. Thanks alot.

Answer 1

Switches transmit packets between computers that are on the same network. Routers transmit packets between computers that are on different networks.

When we talk about computers being on the same / different network, we don't have to mean that they are attached to the same /different wire, we mean that they are assigned logical addresses (IP addresses for instance) that are on the same / different networks.

Switches look at the destination address in a packet at the MAC layer (doesn't matter what that is really - it's just one of the addresses that a packet has), and it tries to match that destination address with an address from a table that it maintains. Switches can have multiple ports, so the switch tries to decide which port it should transmit the packet on. It's "table" is a list of addresses with the correct port for each address.

Router perform in a similar fashion, but they are looking at Network layer addresses (for instance IP addresses) and trying to match the address to an address in it's table. But a router is most often just trying to forward the packet closer to it's destination, so it looks at the network and subnet portion of the destination address, matches that to it's table, and transmits the packet out the correct interface. When a router has a packet to transmit and it has a port that is directly connected to that network and subnet, then it will deliver that packet to the destination computer.

Answer 2

A router is a device that connects two separate networks together. The most common routers these days are probably the ones in people's homes that connect to either a cable or dsl Internet connection, and also a home network. It allows the home network to access the Internet. They can also be configured to allow computers in your home network to be accessible from the Internet. It is incorrect to think of a router acting as a hub on a local network (as dewcoons claims). Many household routers include a switch as well, which is what connects the computers in your home network together.

A common switch* works within one network. It connects multiple segments of a single network together. Usually, a home networking switch is used to connect directly to computers, thereby putting each computer on their own network segment.

A switch differs from a network hub in that all devices on a hub are in the same network segment. Another way to look at this would be to imagine all the computers connected to a hub to be connected on the same cable. So if there are three computers on the network, A, B and C, and computer A sends a message to computer C, computer B still receives that message, however it is discarded by your operating system. These computers also share the bandwidth of the local network (usually 100 megabits per second)

The obvious benefit of using a switch is that messages from A to C travel only between those two computers and the switch. The switch organises which computers are on different segments of the network, and sends the message (or network packet) to only the destination segment. Also, each segment of the network has it's own dedicated 100Mbps connection to the switch.

So to sum up, a router "routes" packets between different networks, whereas a switch "switches" packets to different segments on the same network.

*There are commercial grade switches which support VLANs. This means you can have different networks running on the same switch. However, the switch has no way to pass communication between the two networks, and any communication that goes from one network on the switch to another must still pass through a router. These are usually only found in complex networks and I only add this here for a bit more completeness.

Answer 3

A switch is hardware that allows multiple computers to be hooked together into a network. It "switches" packages between the computers on the network. A switch is usually "dumb", it has no software with it and does not store any tables or other information. Also referred to as a hub.

A router is used to connect to networks to each other. It acts as a hub within the network, but also as a gateway to other networks (and the Internet - which is a giant computer network). If a computer wants to talk to another network, the router takes the information, sends it to the other network, gets a reply and return it to the original computer. Routers maintain tables of IP address and other information that enable them to find and communicate with other networks.

Answer 4

A router is a computer networking device that forwards data packets toward their destinations through a process known as routing
simply to diffrent networks connect together via router
and A network switch is a computer networking device that connects network segments. It uses the logic of a Network bridge but allows a physical and logical star topology. It is often used to replace network hubs. A switch is also often referred to as an intelligent hub.
simply the computers in anetwork need and central device which all can connect to it so be connect to each other

Answer 5

it is achievable, yet you do not choose different routers on a community attempting to assign IP's on your contraptions. you'd be wanting to envision different switches, no longer routers. In theory, the relationship might want to be: ***information superhighway Connection***>>Router>>swap>>branch to different Switches or get entry to factors on your prompt, different prompt router's will conflict if utilising different channels, passwords, etc. Your Server might want to be linked on to a swap to allow comfortable flow administration in the course of the community. keep in mind that your server might want to be appearing because the DNS, no longer the router. To play it probability-free you would possibly want to assign both the Router and your Server a Static IP deal with. each and each room must have it is own get entry to point in the journey that they seem to be some distance away...besides the undeniable fact that the construction that i'm in we've one 3Com get entry to point for ever 4 rooms that are on the fringe of one yet another. attempting to get different prompt routers to artwork jointly isn't straightforward. yet sturdy success!

Answer 6

usually, switch comes at the 2nd stage of the network. switch pass the ip address to the router and the router configures the ip address on where it will go

Answer 7

I ain't here to help, cause I have the same problem. We are on AOL with a wirelss connection,so that everyone in the house can use it. My laptop has a wireless connector, and I sometimes have a right job to get on the net, sometimes about 1 hour to get connected. Why?

Answer 8

This is as easy explanation as it gets!

http://www.howstuffworks.com/router.htm

Hope it helps you!