Chapter 12. Ethernet Bridges and Layer 2 Switches
Chapter 3, "Ethernet LAN Structure," contained a brief sketch of Ethernet bridges. This chapter starts to fill in the picture.
Bridges have been around for a long time. Bridge products evolved into today's Layer 2 switches. Functionally, a Layer 2 switch is a bridge, but calling it a Layer 2 switch is good marketing. The new title tells a customer that the product has an up-to-date implementation. Compared to the bridge products of the past, today's Layer 2 switches are faster, have more ports, hold more information, have more security options, and sometimes support virtual LANs (VLANs). If the vendors who have made these improvements want to call their products Layer 2 switches, that's ...
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