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How LAN Switches Work

By: Jeff Tyson

Transparent Bridging

Most Ethernet LAN switches use a very cool system called transparent bridging to create their address lookup tables. Transparent bridging is a technology that allows a switch to learn everything it needs to know about the location of nodes on the network without the network administrator having to do anything. Transparent bridging has five parts:

  • Learning
  • Flooding
  • Filtering
  • Forwarding
  • Aging

Here's how it works:

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In the next section, you'll get a step-by-step description of how transparent bridging works.