Comment by pestatije

2 years ago

> our campus network at the time was that it was 100% switched

is this realistic, or a writers license?

12 comments

pestatije

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mschuster91  2 years ago

> is this realistic, or a writers license?

Realistic. And, believe it or not, I know of at least one organization that plans to convert an entire literal skyscraper of office space from routed networks to a single, flat switched network for all the employees of all the subcompanies. In 2023.

Obviously everyone with a bit of braincells left tells them to not do that because it's utterly dumb, but hey, strategic decision by the holding company to save on costs...

At least they're not using hubs. (For the younger generation: a hub is an Ethernet device that takes any packet it ingests in one port and sends it out to all other ports, with no consideration at all if the device that the packet is destined for actually is on that port - something a switch does, by maintaining a mapping of MAC addresses to ports. Extremely dumb devices, but used to be way faster and especially cheaper than switches in the 90's/early '00s)

  • Terr_  2 years ago

    I still keep an old 4-port hub in my junk-box because that way I can diagnose/snoop on network traffic... Although so much of it is encrypted these days that it's harder to see what's going on.

    P.S.: Yes, modern alternatives would be to to buy a switch and that can be configured to "mirror" packets onto a chosen port, or a smalls Ethernet network tap unit... But why buy more stuff if I don't really need to?

  • wink  2 years ago

    bonus fact: multicast was still being done via broadcast in some switches ~10y ago, also extremely dumb :P

itscodingtime  2 years ago

What does this mean anyway ? I tried googling but no dice.

  • savolai  2 years ago

    I needed reminding too.

    "In a "switched" network, when Device A wants to send data to Device B, the switch directly connects these two devices so they can chat. Think of it like a train switcher that directly links Track A to Track B for a specific train, instead of sending it through a maze of tracks where other trains are moving.

    In contrast, a "hub-based" network is like a party line in old telephone systems. When Device A talks, EVERY device hears it, but only Device B cares and listens. This is less efficient and can be slower because all devices get the data, which clogs up the network.

    Another option is a "routed" network, where a router decides the best path for the data. This is like GPS choosing the best route based on current traffic conditions. It's more flexible but can introduce more delays because the data might go through multiple steps to reach its destination.

    It's called "switched" because the switch acts like a railroad switch operator, making a direct track connection from one device to another for each piece of data. It "switches" the pathway specifically for that data to make the communication as direct as possible."

  • brazzy  2 years ago

    No routers, only switches.

    • NoZebra120vClip  2 years ago

      I thought it meant circuit-switched, because that's the other option next to packet-switched, which is, of course, how TCP/IP works.

      Layer 2 switches were a rare animal indeed during 1994-1997. There sure wouldn't be any VLANs.