A network switch is an extended network device that provides more connection ports for subnetworks to connect more computers, typically for LAN-WAN connections. With the development of the communications industry and the advancement of the national economy, the network switch market has steadily increased. It has a high cost performance, high flexibility, relatively simple, easy to achieve and so on. Therefore, Ethernet technology has become the most important of a local area network technology, network switches will become the most popular switches.

1. Connect to the same type of network

When the network size increases, simply by extending the cable has become unrealistic. And for different local area networks, to achieve the data transfer between each other, sharing network resources, need to have a special connection device to achieve network expansion. At the same time, the increase in the number of sites in the network, the expansion of geographical scope, the growth of business volume, and the rapid development of network interconnection. The

The rapid development of network interconnection, resulting in the emergence of network switching technology, network switches also came into being. The generalized switch is a device that performs the information exchange function in the communication system.

2. Interconnect different types of networks

In addition to being able to connect to the same type of network, the switch can also be interconnected between different types of networks, such as Ethernet and Fast Ethernet. Today, many switches are capable of providing high-speed connectivity ports that support fast Ethernet or FDDI, for connecting other switches in the network or providing additional bandwidth for critical servers with large bandwidth usage.

3. Provide fast network services

Sometimes in order to provide faster access speed, we can put some important network computer directly connected to the switch port. In this way, the key servers and important users of the network have faster access speeds and support greater traffic.

The main functions of the switch include physical addressing, network topology, error checking, frame sequence, and flow control. At present, the switch also has some new features, such as VLAN (virtual local area network) support, support for link aggregation, and even some also has a firewall function.