A switch is also a combination of hardware and software having its own operating system.
Like bridges, the switches are also used to increase the bandwidth of a network. However, in
case of a switch, a network is virtually divided into small segments called Virtual LANs or
VLANs. Similar type of users can be grouped into a VLAN despite that they have no
physical proximity or closeness. A switch would read the MAC address on a data packet and
match it with the list of MAC addresses of the user machines contained in it. It then sends
data packets only to that machine on a VLAN to which these packets relate. Packets
belonging to other VLANs are not allowed to enter into a particular VLAN, hence
bandwidth increases.
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