LANs to WANs(c) The Complete Management Guide Authors: Muller
N.J. Published year: 2003 |< Day Day Up >| Depending on the
situation facing network managers, bridges can be used to either
extend or segment LANs. At one level, bridges can be used for
segmenting LANs into smaller subnets to improve performance,
control access, and facilitate fault isolation and testing
without impacting the overall user population. At another level,
they are used to create an extended network that greatly expands
the number of devices that can be supported and the services
available to each user . Bridges may even offer additional
features such as data compression, which has the effect of
providing greater throughput over low-speed lines. Compression
ratios of 2:1 all the way down to 6:1 may be selected by the
network manager, depending on what the vendor offers with a
specific product. As noted, bridging occurs at the data link
layer (see Figure 5.1), which provides physical addressing,
manages access to the physical medium, co