KTI Networks KGS-2404 manual Basic Concept and Management, What’s the Ethernet

3. Basic Concept and

Management

This chapter will tell you the basic concept of features to manage this switch and how they work.

3-1. What’s the Ethernet

Ethernet originated and was implemented at Xerox in Palo Alto, CA in 1973 and was successfully commercialized by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Intel and Xerox (DIX) in 1980. In 1992, Grand Junction Networks unveiled a new high speed Ethernet with the same characteristic of the original Ethernet but operated at 100Mbps, called Fast Ethernet now. This means Fast Ethernet inherits the same frame format, CSMA/CD, software interface. In 1998, Gigabit Ethernet was rolled out and provided 1000Mbps. Now 10G/s Ethernet is under approving. Although these Ethernet have different speed, they still use the same basic functions. So they are compatible in software and can connect each other almost without limitation. The transmission media may be the only problem.

Fig. 3-1 IEEE 802.3 reference model vs. OSI reference mode

In Fig. 3-1, we can see that Ethernet locates at the Data Link layer and Physical layer and comprises three portions, including logical link control (LLC), media access control (MAC), and physical layer. The first two comprises Data link layer, which performs splitting data into frame for transmitting, receiving acknowledge frame, error checking and re-transmitting when not received correctly as well as provides an error-free channel upward to network layer.

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