About Network Equipment

Written: May 27, 2008

Computer network equipment directs and blocks data within a computer network. Network equipment is also known as computer networking devices, Intermediate Systems (IS), or InterWorking Units (IWU). Network equipment splits, switches, boosts, and directs data within a network. Networks can be personal area networks (PAN), very small local area networks (LAN), medium-sized campus area networks (CAN), metropolitan area network (MAN), or global wide area networks (WAN). Network equipment includes a variety of appliances – hubs, repeaters, switches, routers, transceivers, multiplexers, bridges, gateways, and firewalls.

Hubs – Hubs provide a central location for attaching wires to workstations and serve to extend the cables that connect to workstations. Network hubs are either passive or active. A passive hub repeats any signals that it receives (without repeating the signal), and an active hub ("multiport repeater") repeats signals on the output side in order to keep the signal strong.

Repeaters – A repeater (a device) solves attenuation problems found in cable wires within a network by cleaning up signals as they route through a network.

Switches - A switch connects network devices to host computers and forwards network traffic the fastest way possible. Switches allow large numbers of devices to share a limited number of ports. Routers are protocol-dependent devices that connect subnetworks. Layer 4 switches are also referred to as Web switches or ecommerce switches.

Routers – A router is a device that routes and forwards information on Layer 3 within a network. Routers use routing protocols as they detect and determine which paths to use to reach other routers in neighboring networks. Many Cisco routers provide security, telephony, and other network services too.

Transceivers - A transceiver (transmitter-receiver) is a device that both transmits and receives analog or digital signals while it converts serial electric signals to serial optical signals and vice versa. Fibre-optic gigabit and 10 gigabit Ethernet transceivers are commonly known as Gigabit Interface Converters (GBIC), Small Form-Factor Pluggables (SFP), 10 Gigabit Small Form Factor Pluggables (XFP), and 10 Attachment Unit Interfaces (XAUI). These devices are hot-swappable transceivers that add to the ease of upgrading electro-optical communication networks.

Multiplexers – A multiplexer is a telecommunication device that funnels and selects one of many analogs or digital input signals and outputs onto a single channel. A multiplexer can make several signals share one expensive device instead of having one device per input signal.

Bridges – A bridge is a internetworking device that is used to help conserve bandwidth on a network by conserving network traffic and slicing a network into smaller segments. Bridges are smarter than hubs and repeaters. A bridge examines MAC addresses (from a message source) and if the message is new to the bridge, the bridge will add the address to the bridging table and store the information on RAM.

Gateways – A gateway joins networks with incompatible communications protocols and operates through the session layer by way of software and/or hardware.

Firewalls – A firewall enforces an access control policy between an organization's network and the Internet. A firewall (whether its software and/or hardware) adds a layer of protection to all or part of a network to block unauthorized users.

Network Manufacturers

Even though Cisco Systems, Inc. is the largest manufacturer of networking systems, there is a large variety of other network equipment manufacturers too. Among the leading manufacturers are: Foundry, Juniper, Marconi, Fore, Brocade, Extreme, Nortel, Riverstone, Redback 3COM, Force10, Dell, and F5.

Do You Need to Upgrade Your Network Equipment?

The GGI Networks' sales team will find you the network equipment you need! For questions call 1-800-908-9665 or email us at: sales@gginetworks.com.

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About GGI Network's Author:

Debbie Jensen, an expert writer for business and technology for GGI Networks, has a Bachelor's Degree in Visual Communication (Multimedia). With her twenty year history of creative expressions and formalized study of Information Technology of digital print/web design and development, she is now publishing articles about networking for GGI Networks.