Cisco® Network Professional's: Advanced Internetworking Guide

2.1. Layer 2 Switching

Whenever network administrators talk about the access layer and connecting devices to the network, the discussion of collision domains and broadcast domains always arises. Old devices like hubs do not provide separation of traffic on the network. The bridge, which provided for collision domain separation, followed the use of hubs. But bridges did so slowly with a lot of processor time and fewer ports than are needed on a network today. For your current design needs, an extensive selection of Layer 2 Ethernet switches provides a wide variety of choices and offers many benefits over older network access devices.

Smaller Collision Domains

Every port on the switch is a collision domain. This means the only devices in the ...