Types of Internetworking Devices

Cisco devices fall into three main categories: bridges and switches, routers, and access servers. We discuss bridges and switches first.

Bridges and Switches

A bridge is a network device that operates at the data link layer. A bridge connects multiple data link layer network segments into a single logical network segment. There are many different types of bridges:

  • Transparent or learning

  • Encapsulation

  • Translational

  • Source-route

  • Source-route translational

Although the Cisco IOS implements each of these types of bridging, we discuss only the first three types of bridging in this book. Source-route and source-route translational bridging are used in Token Ring environments.

Bridging allows for physical and logical separation ...

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