Why is routing so important?
A large autonomous network or the internet may present thousands of possible routes between destinations. As networks grow in scale to support mission-critical uses, routing is becoming more important and more complex.
Visibility into network transmission paths for internal and external traffic can help admins identify sources of latency and provide ways to resolve it.
What are switches and routers?
Switches are devices that connect and can help to secure computers, printers, servers, and other devices to networks in homes or organizations.
Routers connect networks to other networks and act as dispatchers. They analyze data to be sent across networks, identify where it needs to go, choose the best routes for it, and send it on its way. Routers connect organizations to the outside world and can help to protect information from outside security threats.
While switches and routers differ in several other ways, a key difference is how they identify end devices. A Layer 2 switch uniquely identifies a device by its MAC address. A Layer 3 router uniquely identifies a device by a network-assigned IP address.
What is Ethernet?
Ethernet technology provides the routing rules that enable network-connected devices to talk to, and not over, one another.
If two or more connected devices on a network try to transmit data packets at the same time, a packet collision occurs. Ethernet was designed to solve the problem of packet collision.
It provides network devices with a set of rules that essentially says, "Make sure no one else is talking before you talk. If you hear someone talking while you're talking, stop, listen, and wait for the talking to end before you talk again."