A high-performance hub which provides a high-speed backplane and semiconductor -based switching matrix technology to reduce bottlenecks allow full bandwidth to each port on the hub.
Short for port-switching hub, a special type of hub that actually forwards information to the appropriate port based on the IP address assigned. Conventional hubs simply rebroadcast information to every port. Switching hubs forward information only to the required port.
A switching hub is another name for a bridge; a DCE that interconnects network segments at the data link layer. Switching hubs are typically located in the center of a star topology, and provide multiple ports for connections to network stations. Frequently this name is shortened to switch.
While ordinary hubs transmit any incoming data to every port, switching hubs send data only to the target port requiring the data. Since data transmission is much faster and more reliable in this scheme, switching hubs are now indispensable equipment to improve the efficiency of data communication on the entire network. Another advantage of switching hubs (also called "switches" for short) is that cascading limitations for conventional hubs do not apply to switches. Some switches provide 10BASE-2 and/or 10BASE-5 ports to support network connections via dissimilar cables.
A type of hub that accepts packets of information sent within a network, then forwards them to the appropriate port for routing to their network destination based on the network address contained in the packet.
A central network device (multiport hub) that forwards packets to specific ports rather than, as in conventional hubs, broadcasting every packet to every port. In this way, the connections between ports deliver the full bandwidth available. See also: hub; packet