Exploring switches

- The next type of networking device…I would like to talk about are switches.…Switches are devices that are used…to connect multiple computers together.…Switches also, like bridges, primarily work…on layer 2 of the OSI model.…However, there are some switches…that can work on layers above layer 2 as well as layer 2.…In the event that a switch is able to work…on more than one layer of the OSI model,…it is called a multilayer switch.…

The basic switch is the most common…type of switch you'll see out in the real world.…A basic switch is essentially a multiport bridge.…What that means is the switch can be used…to take a much larger network and separate…it into smaller networks or smaller segments…called collision domains.…The way the switch sets up these collision domains…is it takes two devices that want…to talk to each other and links only the two…ports that are relevant to each other…so the two devices can effectively have…a point-to-point communication between each other.…

This results in a collision domain of only two machines.…