Ethernet is Local Area Network (LAN) technology. This system consists of rules to connect multiple systems on the LAN network connection. Apart from LAN, it is also used in Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) network. A system for connecting a number of computer systems to form a local area network, with rules to control the flow of data and to avoid any error during the transmission by two or more systems. Robert Metcalfe invented Ethernet technology. It is standardized as IEEE 802.3
Ethernet operates at the link layer in TCP/IP model architecture. It offers connectionless communication and before transferring any data over the network, the system checks if the access medium is free to transfer data. It determines free medium using Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD). Also, it is built on a star topology.
Ethernet uses two types of cables :
Basically it is characterised into three types of ethernet based on data transfer speed viz.
- Basic ethernet is slowest among all, which provide the speed of(about 10Mbps, 2500 meters).
- fast ethernet (about 100Mbps, 250 meters) which is intermediate between basic and Gigabit network.
- Gigabit ethernet (about 1Gbps, 250 meters).
Advantages of Ethernet :
- The fastest speed provide by Gigabit ethernet is of 1Gbps. The speed ranges from more than 10 times Fast Ethernet.
- To form an Ethernet, we don’t need much cost. It is relatively inexpensive. Total cost induced is less.
- In Ethernet, all the node have an equivalent privileges. It does not follow client-server architecture.
- It does not require any switches or hubs
- Maintenance and administration are simple.
- The cable wont to connect systems in ethernet is strong to noise.
- As it is strong to the noise, the standard of the info transfer doesn’t degrade. The data transfer quality is good.
- With latest versions such as gigabit ethernet and wireless ethernet (IEEE 802.11ac/11ad) transfer speeds in data with the speed of 1-100Gbps.
Disadvantages of Ethernet :
- It offers a nondeterministic service.
- It doesn’t hold good for real-time applications because it requires deterministic service.
- As priority packets cannot be set, it’s not suitable for a client-server architecture.
- In an interactive application, data is extremely small and wish quick data transfer. In ethernet, there’s a limit of the minimum size of the frame to 46B. As a result, it’s not an honest choice for interactive applications.
- If you’re using it for interactive applications, you’ve got to feed dummy data to form the frame size 46B which is mandatory.
- Not suitable for traffic-intensive applications. In case the rate of traffic on the Ethernet goes up the efficiency of the Ethernet goes down.
- It provides connectionless communication over the network.
- The receiver cannot able to send any knowledge after receiving the packets.
- If there’s any problem in ethernet, it’s difficult to troubleshoot what cable or node within the network causing an actual problem.
- The 100Base-T4 version does not support full-duplex data communication mode.