Switching Tutorial Switches are great, they add network capacity and speed, but they are not a cure-all. This tutorial is written to answer these questions. Along the way we'll describe how switches work, and how they both harm and benefit your networking strategy. And we'll discuss different network types, so you can profile your network and gauge the potential benefit of switching for your environment.
Switches occupy the same place in the network as hubs.
Unlike hubs, switches examine each packet and process it accordingly rather than simply repeating the signal to all ports. Switches map the Ethernet addresses of the nodes residing on each network segment and then allow only the necessary traffic to pass through the switch. When a packet is received by the switch, the switch examines the destination and source hardware addresses and compares them to a table of network segments and addresses. Additionally, switches prevent bad or misaligned packets from spreading by not forwarding them. Filtering of packets, and the regeneration of forwarded packets enables switching technology to split a network into separate collision domains.