Computer Sciences and Information Technology
Topic:
Collision Domain
What steps would you take to reduce the size of a collision domain?
For each answer, please explain your reasoning.
Collision Domain
The size of a collision domain can be reduced by physically segmenting the network by reducing the hosts that share a network and by creating more than one physical network. The creation of more than one physical network allows the separation of networks that cannot communicate with each other. The size of the collision domain can also be reduced by logically segmenting the network by reducing the bridges and hubs by replacing them with switches or routers. Although hubs and bridges are rarely used, their presence is still considered to have the probability of causing huge problems that might result in the collision of signals in the network segment (Shimonski, et al. 2002). The use of switches is considered one of the best ways of solving the collision domain issues. The switches split the collision domain into fewer sets of hosts allowing the hosts to see the traffic from other hosts. The network bridge and the switches that use microsegmentation can also have a significant role in resolving the collision domain problem.
The use of the routers to solve the collision domain problem is based on the router’s ability to filter, forward, or drop packets based on the MAC addresses. The router can also achieve packet delivery through the Internet Protocol (IP), enabling it to avoid causing collision domain-related issues. The other way the router can reduce the collision domain is through broadcasting packets that have addresses on the network which the router is running on to the LAN. The switches and routers have the ability to redirect and routing packets by IP, MAC address, data types, such as email, plain text or graphics, the port used such as HTTTP, POP3, or FTP, and by other functions and variables to achieve the performance improvement and reduction of the number of the possible collision domain.
References
Shimonski, R., Eaton, W., Khan, U., & Gordienko, Y. (2002). Sniffer Pro Network Optimization and Troubleshooting Handbook. Elsevier Inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-931836-57-9.X5000-X
