Routing
As we’ve been discussing, you use a switch (or a hub, if you must) to create a single network segment. You use a hierarchy of switches to create multiple segments, generally to improve performance by spreading the traffic over the multiple segments. If such a network has no outside connectivity (in other words, if it doesn’t connect to any type of WAN), then you can give each device a unique static IP address of your choice and all will work well. However, if you need WAN connectivity, then the situation becomes more complicated:
The IP addresses must be unique across the entire WAN, which, in most cases, means the Internet. How are ...
Get Ethernet Networking for the Small Office and Professional Home Office now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
