SMC Networks SMC6709L2 manual Description of Software Features

INTRODUCTION

Description of Software Features

IEEE 802.1D Bridge – The switch supports IEEE 802.1D transparent bridging. The address table facilitates data switching by learning addresses, and then filtering or forwarding traffic based on this information. The address table supports up to 6K addresses.

Store-and-Forward Switching – The switch copies each frame into its memory before forwarding them to another port. This ensures that all frames are a standard Ethernet size and have been verified for accuracy with the cyclic redundancy check (CRC). This prevents bad frames from entering the network and wasting bandwidth.

To avoid dropping frames on congested ports, the switch provides 8? MB for frame buffering. This buffer can queue packets awaiting transmission on congested networks.

Spanning Tree Protocol – The switch supports IEEE 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol. This protocol adds a level of fault tolerance by allowing two or more redundant connections to be created between a pair of LAN segments. When there are multiple physical paths between segments, the protocol will choose a single path and disable all others to ensure that only one route exists between any two stations on the network. This prevents the creation of network loops. However, if the chosen path should fail for any reason, an alternate path will be activated to maintain the connection.

VLANs – This switch supports up to 255 VLANs. A Virtual LAN is a collection of network nodes that share the same collision domain regardless of their physical location or connection point in the network. By segmenting your network into VLANs, you can:

•Eliminate broadcast storms which severely degrade performance in a flat network.

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