Day 28: Network Diagrams and Components

A physical topology displays actual device and wiring locations to help you efficiently locate and troubleshoot devices. Physical topologies can be categorized as bus, ring, mesh, or star topologies.

A logical map of the network topology groups hosts and devices by how they use the network. A logical topology map displays hostnames, address groups, network access, and applications in use on a network.

Table 1-6 describes the features of hubs and switches.

Table 1-6. Functions of Hubs and Switches

The following key points define routers:

• Routers connect networks and route packets to their destination networks.

• Routers can look at the MAC address to determine a frame’s destination, but routers also decapsulate the frame to look at the destination IP address located in the header of the IP packet.