Hi All,
Some companies may refer to a smart hub as one that contains both switching and hub
(repeater) capabilities. Several organisations for example Cabletron have a chassis
with several backplanes these can be bridged via a bridging/management type card other
cards in the chassis could include a straight hub as we know it these days (a
multitport 10BaseT repeater) and/or multi port switches. In some cases they can even
contain a router module.
Other companies say something is smart as it contains an SNMP agent. Some refer to
smart when it has more than a basic SNMP agent. Some agents only look at the basic
hub and not the stats for each port others may look at each port (smart).
Just some of the variations of 'smart' that are available. Underneath the sales pitch
are the true capabilities check them.
Just some thoughts,
Teunis
Hobart, Tasmania
Australia
On Monday, February 26, 2001 at 09:03:52 AM, Tim Rutherford wrote:
> IMO
> "Smart" or managed hubs implies SNMP capabilities
> Not all but some managed hubs maintain per port MAC information.
> However, this is not used (as in a switch) for traffic direction.
> Having per port MAC information allows for things like:
> Troubleshooting - MAC xxx is using my IP address. Where is this guy/gal
> Advanced features - If MAC is not equal to xxx don't allow communication
> Etc.
>
>
> "Howard C. Berkowitz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >On Sun, 25 Feb 2001, C.M. Weaver wrote:
> >
> >> Am I correct in stating that a managed or "smart" hub maintains MAC
> address
> >> tables along with port number information to forward packets to the
> >> appropriate destination?
>
> ElephantChild <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> >
> >Not as I understand these terms. What you describe is a switch or a
> >bridge. A managed hub would have an embedded SNMP agent. A smart hub
> >would have some kind of configuration capability to enable or disable
> >ports, set global parameters (eg, address of management console, SNMP
> >community) or per-port parameters (eg, enable/disable, speed).
> >
> >Or it could be that someone's been spouting Marketingese at you. :-)
>
> The last seems most reasonable.
>
> "Hub" isn't a precise technical term (nor, for that matter, is
> "switch"). The general meaning of hub in the Cisco context, however,
> is a layer 1 multiport repeater. The only "smart" things that apply
> to such a device are management functions.
>
> MAC address information is layer 2, so a device that's aware of it is
> a bridge, not a hub. Bridges can have differing degrees of
> intelligence, and I would agree that an SNMP-manageable bridge is
> smarter than one that is not remotely manageable.
>
> There's no good technical reason to do so, but bridges that are aware
> of VLANs, filtering, etc., tend to be called switches. There are
> non-SNMP-manageable switches that I suppose could be called "dumb".
>
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