Diff between Bridge n Switch?

Whats the difference between a Switch and a Bridge?

Hope this helps.....

Generally, a bridge has only two ports and divides a collision domain into two parts. All decisions made by a bridge are based on MAC or Layer 2 addressing and do not affect the logical or Layer 3 addressing. Thus, a bridge will divide a collision domain but has no effect on a logical or broadcast domain. No matter how many bridges are in a network, unless there is a device such as a router that works on Layer 3 addressing, the entire network will share the same logical broadcast address space. A bridge will create more collision domains but will not add broadcast domains

A switch is essentially a fast, multi-port bridge, which can contain dozens of ports. Rather than creating two collision domains, each port creates its own collision domain. In a network of twenty nodes, twenty collision domains exist if each node is plugged into its own switch port. If an uplink port is included, one switch creates twenty-one single-node collision domains. A switch dynamically builds and maintains a Content-Addressable Memory (CAM) table, holding all of the necessary MAC information for each port

Db.

Dudbolts answer is spot on, if you want some more info you can hit this page :

www.firewall.cx/switches.php

Just remember.. switch - smart... bridge - dumb. j/k

I have been told that bridges connect LAN segments of dissimilar protocols where as switches do not.

Example:
You can use a bridge between an ethernet and token ring but switches cannot..

Is this true?

There are 2 types of bridges: tranparent bridges and translating bridges.

Transparent bridges move data between 2 LAN segments that are the same.

Translation bridges move data between dissimilar LAN segments (such as Ethernet and Token Ring).

A switch is a multi-port switch. Normally doesn't do any translating (however, I do believe there is such a thing as a translating switch, but I've never seen one).

hi friends

A bridge is an internetworking device used to contact separate LANs or link two network segments, and to filter information between them as well as traffic collisions, and other networek problems. A switch is a network acces device that provides a centallized point for LAN communications,media connections and management activities-like Hub.

regards :twisted:
abdulla.C.A