Nortel Networks 70 Series - Manual (Page 29)

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Chapter 2
Network Configuration
The BayStack 70 Series 10/100 Ethernet Switch is designed to provide flexibility
in configuring your network connections. Each switch in the series can be used as
a standalone device or can be used with 10 Mb/s and/or 100 Mb/s hubs or other
interconnection devices in various configurations. The configuration examples in
this chapter illustrate the integration of the switches in network environments of
all sizes and types. These examples include a network of a few workstations
connected to a printer or a segmented network with multiple users or workgroups
and other networking devices.
Benefits of Using Switching Technology
Ethernet switches provide private, dedicated, 10 Mb/s or 100 Mb/s capacity to
each connected PC/server or hub/workgroup segment, which is a significantly
higher capacity than in a shared environment. The higher bandwidth enables the
use of applications such as multimedia, imaging, video, or high-performance
client-server functions among users who are spread out over the network.
This improvement is accomplished very easily, with no change to the desktop
(such as, network interface cards or software and network wiring). As a result, the
performance upgrade and the applications enabled by the switch are obtained very
quickly and at a low cost.
Ethernet switches significantly increase network throughput by segmenting
network traffic. Switches check traffic coming in to each port to learn which
network device is located on which segment. Based on this information, switches
forward cross-segment traffic only to the appropriate segment. The traffic will not
show up in the other segments because it is filtered out. In this way, network
capacity is fully reserved for traffic destined for that segment only, and other
segments will not be saturated with unnecessary traffic.