Router and Switches

“Networks are all around us. They are in our walls, in the air. At schools, hotels, hospitals, even coffee shops. Always there, always on…This power exists today. In our routers. In our switches... . (Cisco, n.d.)

For the past semester i have been a student in the cisco networking academy. Every chapter we learn many new and important things. From the protocols that let computer talk to each other to how to physically install the cables that they use. In this essay I will explain what we learned chapter by chapter. So lets start of at the beging with chapter one.

The Router protocols implemented will be a OSPF which stands for (open shortest path first). Because of the large network being introduced this protocol will be the most useful. This protocol operates on Internal Gateway Protocols by routing the most direct path and using the bandwidth most optimally. This not only reduces the use of

Bridge is a simple device that aids in interconnecting similar LAN's between local area networks that use identical protocols for the physical and data link layers in accordance with the IEEE 802.3 standards. As the devices connected to the bridge use the same protocols, the amount of processing required is minimal. Nowadays, routers are used more commonly to interconnect LAN’s as bridges are Layer 2 devices and pose almost no security while the router is a Layer 3 device and offers better Data Security.

| Given a network topology and three or more routers and an IPv4 addressing scheme, implement RIPv1 routing protocol and confirm layer 3 connectivity.

This protocol use Dijkstra algorithm. It maintains a complex data base, also called as link state database, which contains full information about the remote routers and the exact network topology. The goal from this protocol is to provide similar information about network connection to each router, so each router can calculate the best route to each network this is happen when each router generates information about itself and pass these information to other routers in the network so each router make a copy of this information without changing it.

We have simulated another network having 30 numbers of nodes. The simulation is made using the same platform used for network 1. This simulation is done taking node 1 as a source and node 28 as destination. The optimal path obtained in this simulation is 1-23-13-28, in which data rate is 0.47 kbps. The second optimal path is 1-17-28, in which data rate is 0.35 kbps. The simulated results are summarized here in

Network switches are deployed throughout the enterprise. They are used to distribute data and provide LAN connectivity to end users. Without the network switches, systems will not be able to communicate with servers and applications. All devices are managed. Managing network devices is critical to any organization. It allows

The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of switching and routing used in a network environment and familiarize the reader with various hardware and software associated with there functions. This paper will look at some switching concepts that will include store and forward switching, cut through switching, fragment free switching, and V-Lan. This paper will also cover routing concepts, along with some comparisons including routed vs. routing protocols, Classful vs. classless protocols, and distance vector vs. link state protocols.

routing. In this chapter, we introduce some popular routing protocols in each of the three

The proposed methods have been tasted on large network. (Mat Lab) Programming languages has been used to create the topology of the network (Fig 3). The number of lanes per link is four for all links. Predata files (paths, routing protocols, light tables and color map) are configured.

Key tools utilized, variable length subnet masking and route summarization are explained as well. Here choosing the appropriate routing protocol is equally critical for a successful design. To implement different masks for the same major network it is necessary to have a routing protocol that supports VLSM. Such routing protocols are called classless routing protocols. They carry the mask information along with the route advertisements therefore allowing for the support of more than one mask.

The goal and aim of this report is to cement an understanding of the difference between a router and a multi-layer switch, the benefits either provides and most importantly when you would want to implement one rather than the other, for instance are multi-layer switches simply better? How much do they cost compared to a router, can I justify this cost with performance? Tradionally routers were deployed in networks to route packets throughout the network and to other networks using their software in a method called packet-switching whilst switches in a network traditionally connected hosts to the network and employed a method called Hardware-based switching and only concerning themselves with information at the data link layer. New advances in technology have redefined the role these devices play in the network today with the introduction of the Multi-Layer Switch, switches are able to examine information from the data link layer(layer 2) to the application layer(layer 7) paving the way for hardware based routing. This report will be threefold; first we will look at the standard router, and what it does then we will look at the multilayer switch and what it does then we will look at them together to conclude and fully understand the difference between a router and a layer 3 switch.

The protocol I chose to write about is the Border Gateway Protocol because it is the main protocol used to operate the internet and recommended protocol for Cisco design certifications. The BGP protocol is an inter-autonomous protocol; which means it is for connecting separate large networks, such as a college network to a corporate network or the internet. Due to the large number of routes and connection this protocol must manage; it uses very many features, or attributes, to achieve this. Cisco defines these attributes as weight, local preference, multi-exit discriminator, origin, AS_path, next hop, and community. These attributes are used to discover networks and determine the best path to use for sending packets to those networks.

Thus such tool is very flexible for the useNs-2 as it also allows user to existing protocols for their application simulations as well as to develop their network protocol in order to extend the functionality of the tool. Network simulator also helps for the performance measurement from the trace analysis functionality which is very important for the research purposes in order to measure the efficiency of particular application or particular routing protocol. NS2 is open source and free software tool which is widely available for downloads from the Internet. It was initially developed for the UNIX systems