Types of Switches
Switches are mainly classified into the following types that are mentioned below.
- Virtual Switches: Virtual Switches are the switches that are inside Virtual Machine hosting environments.
- Routing Switches: These are the switches that are used to connect LANs.They also have the work of performing functions in the Network Layer of the OSI Model.
- Unmanaged Switches: Unmanaged Switches are the devices that are used to enable Ethernet devices that help in automatic data passing. These are generally used for home networks and small businesses. In case of the requirement of more switches, we just add more switches by plug and play method.
- Managed Switches: Managed Switches are switches having more complex networks. SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) can be used for configuring managed switches. These types of switches are mostly used in large networks having complex architecture. They provide better security levels and precision control but they are more costly than Unmanaged switches.
- LAN Switches: LAN (Local Area Network) Switches are also called ethernet switches or data switches. LAN switches always try to avoid overlapping of data packets in the network just by allocating bandwidth in such a manner.
- PoE Switches: Power over Ethernet(PoE) are the switches used in Gigabit Ethernets. PoE help in combining data and power transmission over the same cable so that it helps in receiving data and electricity over the same line.
- Smart Switches: Smart Switches are switches having some extra controls on data transmissions but also have extra limitations over managed Switches. They are also called partially managed switches.
- Stackable Switches: Stackable switches are connected through a backplane to combine two logical switches into a single switch.
- Modular Switches: These types of switches help in accommodating two or more cards. Modular switches help in providing better flexibility.
What is a network switch, and how does it work?
The Switch is a network device that is used to segment the networks into different subnetworks called subnets or LAN segments. It is responsible for filtering and forwarding the packets between LAN segments based on MAC address.
Switches have many ports, and when data arrives at any port, the destination address is examined first and some checks are also done and then it is processed to the devices. Different types of communication are supported here like unicast, multicast, and broadcast communication.