Question

There are two different types of switching technologies available in today's market. One lives on one layer, while the other resides in a different layer of the OSI model. Locate these switching technologies, describe the differences in functionality, and relate those differences to the functions inherent within the OSI model.

Answer 1

A switched network is made up of a number of interlinked nodes called switches. A switch is a hardware (as well as software) device that allows a connection to be established between two or more devices.

Types of Switched Networks:

Actually there are basically three types of switching methods are available. Out of three methods, Circuit switching and packet switching are available in market today.

1). Packet Switching:

Packet switching networks are digital networks in which big or large blocks of data created by end-user processes can be broken down into smaller blocks of data called packets ,which are sent from one network to another network via devices called routers.

In packet switching method, messages are broken into packets, where each packet contains header, source, destination and intermediate node address. Packet Switching contains Fixed bandwidth and it follows continuous transmission of packets.

The major advantage of packet switching is that they are used for performing data rate conversion.

2).Circuit Switching:

Circuit Switching is generally used in public networks. It is used for handling voice traffic in addition to digital data. However, data handling by the use of Circuit Switching Methods are proved to be inefficient. It establishes a dedicated path or link between transmitter (Sender) and receiver, which is maintained for the entire duration of conversation .Circuit Switching contains Dynamic Usage of bandwidth and it follows continuous transmission of data.

The difference between Circuit Switching and Packet Switching is:

​​​​​​​