Chapter 10. LAN Switched Network Design

What You Will Learn

On completing this chapter, you will be able to:

• List the components of a switched network

• Describe flat (Layer 2) and hierarchical (Layer 3) network design

• Describe switched LAN network design

• Explain the benefits of switch, router, and VLAN implementations

• Describe network design principles

At this point in the book, all the pieces of a switched network have been discussed, but you still don't know how to put all these pieces together. This chapter revisits some of the earlier chapters and pulls the concepts together to present what a switched Ethernet LAN might look like and how it operates. You won't see any case studies here, because they are saved for Chapter 12, but there are lots of examples and figures to illustrate both Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching. So if you find yourself thinking, "My network doesn't look like the picture in the box cover yet," the similarity should become clearer by the end of this chapter.