Which of the following statements are true regarding bridges and switches? (Choose 3.)
A.
Switches are primarily software based while bridges are hardware based.
B.
Both bridges and switches forward Layer 2 broadcasts.
C.
Bridges are frequently faster than switches.
D.
Switches have a higher number of ports than most bridges.
E.
Bridges define broadcast domains while switches define collision domains.
F.
Both bridges and switches make forwarding decisions based on Layer 2 addresses.
Explanation:
Bridge is a Layer2 device, which is designed to create two or more LAN segments. Each segment
is an independent collision domain. Bridge is also created to provide more available bandwidth, Its
purpose is to filter the LAN traffic, making local traffic be in the local area, and those directed to
other parts of the LAN (sub) be forwarded there. Each NIC on each device has a unique MAC
address. Bridge will record the MAC address of each port and then make forwarding decisions
based on this MAC address table.
Switch is a device of the data link layer, it combines multiple physical LAN segments into a large
network.. Similar to bridge, the switch will transfer and flood the communication frames based on
the MAC address. Because the switching process is performed in hardware, the switching speed
of the switch is faster than that of a bridge performed by software. Regarding each switching port
as a mini-bridge, then each switching port will work as an independent bridge to provide full
medium’s bandwidth to each host.