
User Manual for the NETGEAR 7200 Series Layer 2 Managed Switch Software
IP Multicasting
Sending out data to distributed servers on the MBone (Multicast Backbone). For large amounts of data, IP Multicast is more efficient than normal Internet transmissions because the server can broadcast a message to many recipients simultaneously. Unlike traditional Internet traffic that requires separate connections for each
Internet Protocol
The method or protocol by which data is sent from one computer to another on the Internet. Each computer (known as a host) on the Internet has at least one IP address that uniquely identifies it among all other computers on the Internet. When you send or receive data (for example, an
Because a message is divided into a number of packets, each packet can, if necessary, be sent by a different route across the Internet. Packets can arrive in a different order than they were sent. The Internet Protocol just delivers them. It's up to another protocol, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to put them back in the right order. IP is a connectionless protocol, which means that there is no continuing connection between the end points that are communicating. Each packet that travels through the Internet is treated as an independent unit of data without any relation to any other unit of data. (The reason the packets do get put in the right order is because of TCP, the
L
LAN
See “Local Area Network” on page 10.
Learning
The bridge examines the Layer 2 source addresses of every frame on the attached networks (called listening) and then maintains a table, or cache, of which MAC addresses are attached to each of its ports.
Load balancing
The ability to distribute traffic across various ports of a device, such as a switch, to provide efficient, optimized traffic throughout the network.
Glossary |