11.1. Networking Before Layer 2 Switching
Because knowing the history of something really helps with understanding why things are the way they are today, I'm going to go back in time a bit and talk about the condition of networks before switches, and the part switches have played in the evolution of corporate LANs by helping to segment them. For a visual of how a typical network design looked before LAN switching, check out the network in Figure 11.1.
Figure 11.1. A network, before switching
The design in Figure 11.1 was called a collapsed backbone because all the hosts involved had to go to the corporate backbone in order to reach any network ...
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