3Com manual 3 Multiple Ports per Subnets with the LANplex 2500 System, What Is Routing?

What Is Routing? 3-3

Integrating The LANplex system integrates bridging and routing. Multiple switch Bridging and ports can be assigned to each subnet. See Figure 3-3. Traffic between

Routing ports assigned to the same subnet is switched transparently using transparent bridging or Express switching (described in the LANplex® 2500 Operation Guide). Traffic traveling to different subnets is routed using one of the supported routing protocols.

In the following descriptions of bridging and routing on the LANplex system, the term MAC address refers to a physical hardware address. The term network address refers to a logical address that applies to a specific protocol.

Subnet 4

LANplex 2500 FDDI ports

Ethernet ports

Subnet 1

Subnet 3

Subnet 2

Figure 3-3 Multiple Ports per Subnets with the LANplex 2500 System

Because the LANplex model of bridging and routing allows several segments to be connected to the same subnet, you can increase the level of segmentation in your network without having to create new subnets or assign network addresses. Instead, you can use additional Ethernet ports to expand your existing subnets. This is in contrast to more traditional forms of bridging and routing where, at most, one port is connected to any subnet.