Chapter 1: Introduction

to Switched Networks

Routing and Switching

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Chapter 1
1.0 Introduction
1.1 LAN Design
1.2 Switched Environment
1.3 Summary

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Chapter 1: Objectives
Upon completion of this chapter, you will be able to:
Describe convergence of data, voice, and video in the context of
switched networks.
Describe a switched network in a small-to-medium-sized business.
Explain the process of frame forwarding in a switched network.
Compare a collision domain to a broadcast domain.

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Converged Networks

Growing Complexity of Networks

Our digital world is
changing.
Information must
be accessed from
anywhere in the
world.
Networks must be
secure, reliable,
and highly
available.

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Converged Networks

Elements of a Converged Network

Collaboration is a
requirement.
To support collaboration,
networks employ
converged solutions.
Data services include
voice systems, IP phones,
voice gateways, video
support, and video
conferencing.
Call control, voice
messaging, mobility, and
automated attendant are
also common features.
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Converged Networks

Benefits of a Converged Network

Converged network

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a single network designed to handle voice, video, and data;

an internal network where the Layer 3 devices, such as

routers, have a complete routing table to be able to
accurately and efficiently send data to a remote destination;

a switch network that has completed calculations that result

in a single path through the switch network.

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Converged Networks

Benefits of a Converged Network

Elements of a Converged Network (1.1.1.2)

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Call control: Telephone call processing, caller ID, call

transfer, hold, and conference

Voice messaging: Voicemail

Mobility: Receive important calls wherever you are

Automated attendant: Serve customers faster by routing

calls directly to the right department or individual

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Converged Networks

Borderless Switched Networks

The Cisco Borderless Network is a network architecture that
allows organizations to connect anyone, anywhere, anytime,
and on any device securely, reliably, and seamlessly.
Cisco Borderless Network is designed to address IT and
business challenges, such as supporting the converged
network and changing work patterns.

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Converged Networks

Hierarchy in the Borderless Switched

Network
Borderless
switched network
design guidelines
are built upon the
following principles:
Hierarchical
Understanding
the role of
each device at
every tier,

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Converged Networks

Hierarchy in the Borderless Switched

Network
Borderless
switched network
design guidelines
are built upon the
following principles:
Resiliency
- Satisfies user
expectations for
keeping the
network always
on

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Converged Networks

Hierarchy in the Borderless Switched

Network
Borderless
switched network
design guidelines
are built upon the
following principles:
Flexibility
- Allows intelligent
traffic load
sharing by using
all network
resources

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Converged Networks

Hierarchy in the Borderless Switched

Network
Borderless
switched network
design guidelines
are built upon the
following principles:
Modularity

Allows seamless
network expansion
and integrated
service enablement
on an on-demand
basis

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Converged Networks

Core Distribution access

Access layer
Represents the network edge, where traffic enters or exits the
campusnetwork.
Traditionally, the primary function of an access layer switch is to
provide network access to the user.
Access layer switches connect to distribution layer switches, which
implement network foundation technologies such as routing, quality of
service, and security.
.

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Converged Networks

Core Distribution access

Distribution Layer
The distribution layer interfaces between the access layer and the
core layer to provide many important functions, including:
Aggregating large-scale wiring closet networks
Aggregating Layer 2 broadcast domains and Layer 3 routing
boundaries
Providing intelligent switching, routing, and network access policy
functions to access the rest of the network
Providing high availability through redundant distribution layer
switches to the end-user and equal cost paths to the core
Providing differentiated services to various classes of service
applications at the edge of the network
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Converged Networks

Core Distribution access

Core Layer
The core layer is the network backbone. It connects several layers of
the campus network.
The core layer serves as the aggregator for all of the other campus
blocks and ties the campus together with the rest of the network. The
primary purpose of the core layer is to provide fault isolation and highspeed backbone connectivity.
Figure 1-6 shows a three-tier campus network design for
organizations where the access, distribution, and core are each
separate layers.

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Converged Networks

Core, Distribution, Access

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Switched Networks

Role of Switched Networks

Switched Networks (1.1.2)
Switched networks are important when deploying wired LANs.
A network professional today must be well-versed in switches and
LAN technology in order to add commonly deployed devices such
as PCs, printers, video cameras, phones, copiers, and scanners.
Sharing and accessing network devices is common in both the
home and business network.

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Switched Networks

Role of Switched Networks

Switching technologies are crucial to network design.
Switching allow traffic to be sent only where it is needed in most
cases, using fast methods.
A switched LAN:
Allows more flexibility
Allows more traffic management
Supports quality of service, additional security, wireless, IP
telephony, and mobility services

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Switched Networks

Role of Switched Networks

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Switched Networks

Role of Switched Networks

Form Factors (1.1.2.2)
There are various types of switches used in business networks. It is
important to deploy the appropriate types of switches based on
network requirements.

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Switched Networks

Form Factor

Fixed
Platform

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Switched Networks

Form Factor (cont.)

Modular
Platform

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Switched Networks

Form Factor (cont.)

Stackable
Platform

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Frame Forwarding

Switching as a General Concept

A switch makes a decision based on ingress and a destination
port.
A LAN switch keeps a table that it uses to determine how to
forward traffic through the switch.
Cisco LAN switches forward Ethernet frames based on the
destination MAC address of the frames.
The fundamental concept of switching refers to a device
making a decision based on two criteria:
Ingress port
Destination address

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Frame Forwarding

Switching as a General Concept

The decision on how a switch forwards traffic is made in
relation to the flow of that traffic.
The term ingress is used to describe a frame entering a device
on a specific port.
The term egress is used to describe frames leaving the device
through a particular port.
When a switch makes a decision, it is based on the ingress
port and the destination address of the message.
A LAN switch maintains a table that it uses to determine how to
forward traffic through the switch.

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Frame Forwarding

Dynamically Populating a Switch MAC

Address Table
A switch must first learn which devices exist on each port before it
can transmit a frame.
It builds a table called a MAC address or content addressable
memory (CAM) table.
The mapping device <-> port is stored in the CAM table.
CAM is a special type of memory used in high-speed searching
applications.
The information in the MAC address table used to send frames.
When a switch receives an incoming frame with a MAC address that
is not found in the CAM table, it floods it to all ports, but the one that
received the frame.
Refer online notes Figure 1-13 to 1-18

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Frame Forwarding

Switch Forwarding Methods (1.2.1.3)

Commonly, in earlier networks, as they grew, enterprises began to
experience slower network performance.
Ethernet bridges (an early version of a switch) were added
to networks to limit the size of the collision domains. In the 1990s,
advancements
in integrated circuit technologies allowed for LAN switches to replace
Ethernet
bridges. These LAN switches were able to move the Layer 2
forwarding decisions
from software to application-specific-integrated circuits (ASICs).
ASICs reduce
the packet-handling time within the device, and allow the device to
handle an
increased number of ports without degrading performance. This
method of forwarding

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Frame Forwarding

Switch Forwarding Methods

Add a header

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Frame Forwarding

Store-and-Forward Switching
Allows the switch to:
Check for errors (via FCS check)

The FCS is an error checking process that helps to ensure that the frame is free of physical and
data-link errors. If the frame is error-free, the switch forwards the frame. Otherwise, the frame is
dropped.
Automatic Buffering
The ingress port buffering process used by store-and-forward switches provides the
flexibility to support any mix of Ethernet speeds. For example, handling an incoming
frame traveling into a 100 Mb/s Ethernet port that must be sent out a 1 Gb/s
interface would require using the store-and-forward method. With any mismatch in
speeds between the ingress and egress ports, the switch stores the entire frame in a

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Frame Forwarding

Store-and-Forward Switching
Allows the switch to:
Perform automatic buffering

The ingress port buffering process used by store-and-forward switches provides the flexibility to
support any mix of Ethernet speeds. For example, handling an incoming frame traveling into a
100 Mb/s Ethernet port that must be sent out a 1 Gb/s interface would require using the storeand-forward method.

Store-and-forward switching is Ciscos primary LAN switching

method.

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Frame Forwarding

Store-and-Forward Switching (cont.)

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Frame Forwarding

Cut-Through Switching
An advantage to cut-through switching is the capability of the switch
to start forwarding a frame earlier than store-and-forward switching.
There are two primary characteristics of cut-through switching: rapid
frame forwarding and invalid frame processing.
Allows the switch to start forwarding in about 10 microseconds
No FCS check
No automatic buffering

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Frame Forwarding

Cut-Through Switching
Rapid Frame Forwarding
As indicated in Figure 1-20, a switch using the cut-through method
can make a forwarding decision as soon as it has looked up the
destination MAC address of the frame in its MAC address table.
The switch does not have to wait for the rest of the frame to enter the
ingress port before making its forwarding decision.
The cut-through switching method does not drop most invalid
frames. Frames with errors are forwarded to other segments of the
network. If there is a high error rate (invalid frames) in the network,
cut-through switching can have a negative impact on bandwidth;
thus, clogging up bandwidth with damaged and invalid frames.

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Frame Forwarding

Cut-Through Switching
Fragment Free
Fragment free switching is a modified form of cut-through switching
in which the switch waits for the collision window (64 bytes) to pass
before forwarding the frame.
This means each frame will be checked into the data field to make
sure no fragmentation has occurred.
Fragment free mode provides better error checking than cut-through,
with practically no increase in latency.
With a lower latency speed advantage of cut-through switching, it is
more appropriate extremely demanding, high-performance
computing (HPC) applications that require process-to-process
latencies of 10 microseconds or less.

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Frame Forwarding

Cut-Through Switching (cont.)

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Switching Domains

Collision Domains
A collision domain is the segment where devices must compete to
communicate.
All ports of a hub belong to the same collision domain.
Every port of a switch is a collision domain on its own.
A switch break the segment into smaller collision domains, easing
device competition.

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Switching Domains

Collision Domains
A collision domain is the segment where devices must compete to
communicate.
All ports of a hub belong to the same collision domain.
Every port of a switch is a collision domain on its own.
A switch break the segment into smaller collision domains, easing
device competition.

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Switching Domains

Broadcast Domains
A broadcast domain is the extend of the network where a broadcast
frame can be heard.
Switches forward broadcast frames to all ports; therefore, switches
do not break broadcast domains.
All ports of a switch, with its default configuration, belong to the
same broadcast domain.
If two or more switches are connected, broadcasts are forwarded to
all ports of all switches, except for the port that originally received
the broadcast.

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Switching Domains

Broadcast Domains
Broadcasts are sometimes necessary for initially locating other
devices and network services, but they also reduce network
efficiency.
Too many broadcasts and a heavy traffic load on a network can
result in congestion: a slowdown in the network performance.
Refer online notes : Figure 1.2.2

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Switching Domains

Alleviating Network Congestion

Switches help alleviating network congestion by:
Facilitating the segmentation of a LAN into separate collision
domains
Providing full-duplex communication between devices
Taking advantage of their high-port density
Buffering large frames
Employing high-speed ports
Taking advantage of their fast internal switching process
Having a low, per-port cost

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Chapter 1: Summary
In this chapter, you learned:
The trend in networks is towards convergence using a single set of
wires and devices to handle voice, video, and data transmission.
There has been a dramatic shift in the way businesses operate.
There are no physical offices or geographic boundaries constraints.
Resources must now be seamlessly available anytime and
anywhere.
The Cisco Borderless Network architecture enables different
elements, from access switches to wireless access points, to work
together and allow users to access resources from any place at any
time.

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Chapter 1: Summary (cont.)

The traditional, three-layer hierarchical design model divides the
network into core, distribution, and access layers, and allows each
portion of the network to be optimized for specific functionality.
It provides modularity, resiliency, and flexibility, which provides a
foundation that allows network designers to overlay security,
mobility, and unified communication features.
Switches use either store-and-forward or cut-through switching.
Every port on a switch forms a separate collision domain allowing for
extremely high-speed, full-duplex communication.
Switch ports do not block broadcasts and connecting switches can
extend the size of the broadcast domain, often resulting in degraded
network performance.

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Presentation_ID

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