Networking

and
Internetworking
Devices
(repeaters , hubs ,bridges , switch ,
routers and gateways)
Connecting Devices
Connecting Devices and OSI Model
 Repeaters
• A repeater operates at the physical layer.
• Its job is to regenerate the signal over the same network before
the signal becomes too weak or corrupted so as to extend the
length to which the signal can be transmitted over the same
network.
• An important point to be noted about repeaters is that they do
not amplify the signal.
• When the signal becomes weak, they copy the signal bit by bit
and regenerate it at the original strength.
• It is a 2 port device. 
Repeater in OSI Model
Repeater
HUB
 HUB
• Hub is a very simple network connecting device.
• In Star/hierarchical topology, a Repeater is called Hub.
• It is also known as a Multiport Repeater Device.
• A Hub is a layer-1 device and operates only in the physical network of
the OSI Model. 
• Since it works in the physical layer, it mainly deals with the data in the form
of bits or electrical signals.
• A Hub is mainly used to create a network and connect devices on the same
network only.
• A Hub is not an intelligent device, it forwards the incoming messages to
other devices without checking for any errors or processing it.
• It does not maintain any address table for connected devices.
• It only knows that a device is connected to one of its ports.
 HUB
• When a data packet arrives at one of the ports of a Hub, it simply copies
the data to every port.
• In other words, a hub broadcasts the incoming data packets in the network.
Due to this, there are various security issues in the hub. Broadcasting also
leads to unnecessary data traffic on the channel.
• A Hub uses a half-duplex mode of communication.
• It shares the bandwidth of its channel with the connecting devices.
• It has only one collision domain, so there are more chances of collision and
traffic on the channel.
• A hub is connected in limited network size.
• If the network size is increased, the speed of the network will slow down.
Also, a hub can only connect the devices in the same network with the
same data rates and format only.
 Types of HUB
There are mainly two types of Hub:
• Active Hub: An Active hub is also known as Concentrator. It
requires a power supply and can work as a repeater. Thus, it
can analyze the data packets and can amplify the transmission
signals, if needed.
• Passive Hub: A passive hub does not need any power supply
to operate. It only provides communication between the
networking devices and does not amplify the transmission
signals. In other words, it just forwards the data as it is.
• Intelligent Hub :- It work like active hubs and include remote
management capabilities. They also provide flexible data rates
to network devices. It also enables an administrator to monitor
the traffic passing through the hub and to configure each port
in the hub.
 Advantages of HUB
• It is simple to implement.
• The implementation cost is low.
• It does not require any special system
administration configuration. We can just plug
and play it.
 Disadvantages of HUB
• It can connect devices of the same network
only.
• It uses a half-duplex mode of communication.
• It is less secure, as it broadcasts the data
packets.
• It can be used in a limited network size only.
• Broadcasting induces unnecessary traffic on
the channel.
 Bridges
• A bridge is a layer-2 network connecting device, i.e., it works on
the physical and data-link layer of the OSI model.
•  It interprets data in the form of data frames.
• In the physical layer, the bridge acts as a Repeater which regenerates
the weak signals, while in the data-link layer, it checks the
MAC(Media Access Control) address of the data frames for its
transmission.
• A bridge connects the devices which are present in the same
network.
• It is mainly used to segment a network to allow a large network size.
• It has two types of port - incoming and outgoing.
• It uses the incoming port to receive the data frames and outgoing
port to send the data frames to other devices.
• It has two collision domains, so there is still a chance of collision
and traffic in the data transmission channel.
 Bridges
• A Bridge has filtering capacity. 
• It means that it can discard the faulty data frames and will allow
only the errorless data frames in the network.
• Also, it can check the destination MAC address of a frame and
decides the port from which the frame should be sent out.
• For this, it maintains a table containing the physical(MAC)
addresses of all the devices in the network.
• Whenever a data frame arrives at the incoming port of the bridge,
it first checks the data frame for any kind of errors.
• If the frame is errorless, it directs the data frame to the specified
MAC address(taking instance from the address table) using its
outgoing port.
• It does not change the physical(MAC Address) of the frames
during transmission. In other words, a Bridge is a Repeater
with filtering capability.
Bridge in OSI Model
 Types of bridges
1) Simple bridge
2) Multiport Bridge
3) Transparent Bridge
 Simple Bridge
• This is most primitive and least expensive.
• This links two segments and contains a table
that lists the addresses of all the stations
included in each of them.
• These addresses must be entered manually.
• If a station is removed, the newly invalid
address must be deleted.
 Multiport Bridge
• It can be used to connect more than two LANs
• The bridge has four tables , each one holding
the physical addresses of stations reachable
through the corresponding port.
 Transparent Bridge
• These are the bridge in which the stations are
completely unaware of the bridge’s existence
i.e. whether or not a bridge is added or deleted
from the network, reconfiguration of the
stations is unnecessary. These bridges make
use of two processes i.e. bridge forwarding
and bridge learning.
 Switch
• A switch is a layer-2 network connecting device,
i.e., it works on the physical and data-link layer of
the OSI model.
• It interprets data in the form of data frames.
• A switch acts as a multiport bridge in the network.
• It provides the bridging functionality with greater
efficiency.
• A switch maintains a Switch table which has the
MAC addresses of all the devices connected to it.
 Switch
• It is preferred more over the hub, as it reduces any
kind of unnecessary traffic in the transmission
channel.
• A switch can connect the devices only in the same
network.
• It uses the full-duplex mode of communication and
saves bandwidth.
• The switch table keeps on updating every few
seconds for better processing.
 Switch
• A Switch is an intelligent device with filtering
capabilities.
• It can discard the faulty data frames and will allow
only the errorless data frames in the network. Also, it
will forward the data frames to the specific node based
on the MAC address(taken from the Switch table).
• A Switch has multiple collision domains, so it has least
or no collisions in the transmission channel.
• In fact, every port of switch has a separate collision
domain.
 Switch
• When a data frame arrives at the Switch, it first checks for any
kind of error in the data frame.
• If the frame is error-free, it will search the MAC address of the
destination in the Switch table.
• If the address is available in the switch table, it will forward
the data frame to that specific node, else switch will register
the MAC address in the switch table.
• If the destination address is not specified, it will broadcast the
data frame to each node in the network.
• A Switch can have 8/16/24/48 ports. The data transmission
speed is slow in a switch(around 10-100 Mbps). Also, it has
only one broadcasting domain.
 Switch
• We can have a two-layer switch or a three-layer switch.
• A three-layer switch is used at the network layer; it is a kind of
router.
• The two-layer switch performs at the physical and data link layers.
A two-layer switch is a bridge, a bridge with many ports and a
design that allows better (faster) performance.
• A bridge with a few ports can connect a few LANs together. A
bridge with many ports may be able to allocate a unique port to
each station, with each station on its own independent entity. This
means no competing traffic (no collision, as we saw in Ethernet).
• A two-layer switch, as a bridge does, makes a filtering decision
based on the MAC Address of the frame it received.
• However, a two-layer switch can be more sophisti­cated. It can have
a buffer to hold the frames for processing.
 Types of Switch
• Store and Forward Switch: It is the most widely and commonly
used switch. It does not forward the data frames unless the
frames are errorless and completely received in the switch buffer.
It is reliable in nature.
• Cut-through Switch: Cut-through switches have no error
checking. Also, it starts sending the data frame to the destination
node when it starts receiving it. It is unreliable in nature.
• Fragment-Free Switch: It is a combination of store and forward,
and cut-through switch. It checks only the starting 64
bytes(header information) of the data frame before transmitting
the frame.
• Adaptive Switch: It is the most advanced kind of switch which
automatically chooses any of the above three switches as per the
need.
 Advantages of Switch
• The implementation cost is medium.
• It does not require any special system administration
configuration. We can just plug and play it.
• Improves security by limiting the scope of data frames.
• It has the filtering capability.
• It can be used in a large network.
• It uses full-duplex mode of communication
• It has multiple collision domains, so there are least or no
collisions in the channel.
 Disadvantages of Switch
• It can connect devices of the same network
only.
• There is a delay in forwarding the frames due
to error checking.
• There is a need to maintain a Switch table.
 Routers
• A router is a device like a switch that routes data
packets based on their IP addresses.
• Router is mainly a Network Layer device.
• Routers normally connect LANs and WANs together
and have a dynamically updating routing table based
on which they make decisions on routing the data
packets.
• Router divide broadcast domains of hosts connected
through it.
 Routers
• A router is used to route data packets between two different
networks.
• It reads the information in each packet to tell where it is
going.
• If it is destined for an immediate network it has access to, it
will strip the outer packet (IP packet for example),
readdress the packet to the proper Ethernet address, and
transmit it on that network.
• If it is destined for another network and must be sent to
another router, it will re-package the outer packet to be
received by the next router and send it to the next router.
 Routers
• Routing occurs at the network layer of the OSI
model.
• They can connect networks with different
architectures such as Token Ring and Ethernet
 Routers
• Routers are general-purpose devices that interconnect two or more heterogeneous
networks.
• They are usually dedicated to special-purpose computers, with separate input and
output network interfaces for each connected network. Because routers and gateways
are the backbone of large computer networks like the internet, they have special
features that give them the flexibility and the ability to cope with varying network
addressing schemes and frame sizes through segmentation of big packets into smaller
sizes that fit the new network components.
• Each router interface has its own Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) module, its
own LAN address (network card address) and its own Internet Protocol (IP) address.
• The router, with the help of a routing table, has knowledge of routes a packet could
take from its source to its destination.
• The routing table, like in the bridge and switch, grows dynamically. Upon receipt of
a packet, the router removes the packet headers and trailers and analyzes the IP
header by determining the source and destination addresses and data type, and noting
the arrival time.
• It also updates the router table with new addresses not already in the table. The IP
header and arrival time information is entered in the routing table. Routers normally
work at the Network layer of the OSI model.
Routers
 Types of Routers
1) Static routers - Are configured manually and route data
packets based on information in a router table.
2) Dynamic routers - Use dynamic routing algorithms.
There are two types of algorithms:
i. Distance vector - Based on hop count, and periodically
broadcasts the routing table to other routers which takes
more network bandwidth especially with more routers. RIP
uses distance vectoring. Does not work on WANs as well as
it does on LANs?
ii. Link state - Routing tables are broadcast at startup and then
only when they change. The open shortest path first (OSPF)
protocol uses the link state routing method to configure
routes or distance vector algorithm (DVA).
 Gateways
• A gateway, as the name suggests, is a passage to
connect two networks together that may work upon
different networking models.
• They basically works as the messenger agents that
take data from one system, interpret it, and transfer it
to another system.
• Gateways are also called protocol converters and can
operate at any network layer.
• Gateways are generally more complex than switch or
router.
 Gateways
• A gateway is normally a computer that operates in all
five layers of the Internet or seven layers of OSI
model.
• A gateway takes an application message, reads it, and
interprets it.
• This means that it can be used as a connecting device
between two internetworks that use different models.
Gateway in OSI Model