Network devices/ Connecting

devices
• Also known as networking hardware, are physical
devices that allow hardware on a computer network to
communicate and interact with one another.
• For example Repeater, Hub, Bridge, Switch, Routers,
Gateway
1) Repeater:

• A repeater operates at the physical layer.

• Its job is to regenerate the signal over the same network before the signal becomes too
weak or corrupted .

• It is a 2-port device.

• Signals that carry information within a network can travel a fixed distance before
attenuation endangers the integrity of the data.

• A repeater receives a signal and, before it becomes too weak or corrupted, regenerates
the original bit pattern.

• The repeater then sends the refreshed signal.

 A D E
B

• A repeater can extend the physical length of a LAN, as

shown in Figure where repeater is connecting 2 segments of
LAN
• It is different from amplifier as it only regenerates the
strength
• Used for forwarding of the signal
Disadvantages

• No filtering: If PC A wants to send signal to PC B only. Repeater is not able to stop/ filter the
data and sends it further also.

• It does not has any software to stop the signal

• Main disadvantage of repeater is they repeat noise in the system.

• The collision domain is maximum, if ‘n’ number of devices are connected to repeater, collision
domain=n

• If a buffer is present, the signal can be stored bit by bit, but there is no such functionality in a
repeater

• As there is no storing process, therefore if two signal are communicated at the same time, instead
of getting stored at different memory space, they may collide
2) Hubs:

It is also a physical layer device

It is a multiport repeater (4 port hub, 8 port hub, 16 port hub), to which you can
connect different devices
• It is different from repeater as it is multiport

• Also in repeaters, if a wire a damaged it will not tell anything, but in hubs there is an extra
functionality where small LEDs blink if there is a problem like power

• Hubs are also used for forwarding of the signal from one device to another

Disadvantages:
• No filtering because no software present for storing and buffering

• It can’t decide for which MAC address or which interface message is, it broadcasts it

• So there is high traffic like repeater

• Collision domain=n (number of devices)

Advantage:
Hubs and repeaters are cheaper as compared to routers and switches
3) Routers
• Can work over physical layer, data link layer,
network layer

• Connects two different networks

• It is used for inter-connection between

collection of different networks (internet)

• Used in Wide area network (WAN)

• Device mostly used in network layer is a router

• It can check the MAC address as well as the IP
address
Characteristics:

➢ Forwarding
• It maintains routing table and with help of that table, manages the route for the data
• It sends data in form of packets which contains the source address as well as the destination
address
• It checks the routing table to know where to send the data

➢ Filtering
• If host A wants to know MAC address of router
• ‘A’ sends request to router for its MAC address
• Router stops the message there only and does not
forward
• It can filter out the data
Characteristics:

➢ Routing
• Provides route using routing table which has different protocols.
• If router can’t decide where to send the data, then it can send it in all the direction/ broadcast
which is also called flooding

Advantage

➢ Collision domain
• Packets do not collide inside router
• As it uses the store and forward method
• Keeps in memory, process using routing table and then decides where to send
• If another packet arrives it also goes to memory does not collide
4) Switch:
• Layer 2 device (data link layer)

• Multiport bridge (Bridge is a two port device which is used to connect two LANs)

• Switch can connect multiple devices such as computer, laptop, printer, wireless devices

• The switch can perform error checking before forwarding data that makes it very efficient as it
does not forward packets that have errors and forward good packets selectively to correct port
only.
• Parallel data transfer takes place in full duplex mode without any collision
• Thus, collision domain=0
• Traffic is minimal
• In hubs message is sent to all as there is no filtering
• Switch sends data only to particular destination
5) Gateways
• Gateway, as the name suggests, is a passage to connect two networks together that may work
upon different networking models.
• They basically work as the messenger agents that take data from one system, interpret it, and
transfer it to another system.
• Gateways are also called protocol converters and can operate at any network layer.
• Without gateway you can’t access internet
Advantages
• It connects two networks which has different protocol
• It operates in all layers of OSI model
• It provides security
• Example: web application firewalls, IoT gateways, email security gateway

Disadvantages:
• Expensive
• Slow data transfer
• Complex
6) Modems
• A modem is short for modulator/demodulator
• It acts as a bridge between the internet/telephone line and the computer.
• The reason to use the modem for an internet connection is that both the internet and the computer take two
different signals. It means that the internet sends the analog signal, but the computer system can only
understand the digital signal. So, we need a device that can convert an analog signal to a digital signal and
vice versa. To do this, we need a modem.
• It modulates the incoming analog signal from the internet to digital signal and directs it to the computer,
and vice versa.