Amer Networks SGD8 - Manual (Page 7)

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I
NTRODUCTION
This section describes the features of the 8-Port 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet
Switch, as well as providing some background information about Gigabit Ethernet
and switching technology.
Gigabit Ethernet Technology
Gigabit Ethernet is an extension of IEEE 802.3 Ethernet utilizing the same packet
structure, format, and support for CSMA/CD protocol, full duplex, flow control, and
management objects, but with a tenfold increase in theoretical throughput over 100-
Mbps Fast Ethernet and a hundredfold increase over 10-Mbps Ethernet. Since it is
compatible with all 10-Mbps and 100-Mbps Ethernet environments, Gigabit Ethernet
provides a straightforward upgrade without wasting a company’s existing investment
in hardware, software, and trained personnel.
The increased speed and extra bandwidth offered by Gigabit Ethernet is essential to
coping with the network bottlenecks that frequently develop as computers and their
busses get faster and more users use applications that generate more traffic.
Upgrading key components, such as your backbone and servers to Gigabit Ethernet
can greatly improve network response times as well as significantly speed up the
traffic between your subnets.
Gigabit Ethernet supports video conferencing, complex imaging, and similar data-
intensive applications. Likewise, since data transfers occur 10 times faster than Fast
Ethernet, servers outfitted with Gigabit Ethernet NIC’s are able to perform 10 times
the number of operations in the same amount of time.
Switching Technology
Another key development pushing the limits of Ethernet technology is in the field of
switching technology. A switch bridges Ethernet packets at the MAC address level of
the Ethernet protocol transmitting among connected Ethernet or fast Ethernet LAN
segments.
Switching is a cost-effective way of increasing the total network capacity available to
users on a local area network. A switch increases capacity and decreases network
loading by making it possible for a local area network to be divided into different
segments which don’t compete with each other for network transmission capacity,
giving a decreased load on each.
The switch acts as a high-speed selective bridge between the individual segments.
Traffic that needs to go from one segment to another is automatically forwarded by