A networking bridge is a device which connects two parts of a network together at the data link layer, layer 2 of the OSI Model. Network bridges work similarly to network switches however the traffic is managed differently. A bridge will only send traffic from one side to the other if its destination is on the other side. Bridges are much more complicated than hubs, and are in some cases more useful than switches. There are four different types of networking bridging, simple, multi-port, transparent and source route bridging.
Bridges are placed between two networks to connect them together, they are very useful for making large LAN networks as they help filtering the data load of the traffic by dividing it into segments or packets. Network bridges are very simple and inexpensive, so there is little reason to not use them within a network. The disadvantages however is that bridges cannot read specific IP addresses, as well as they cannot build a link between networks of different architecture. They also don’t work on WAN networks as they are IP address specific, and the bridge can not handle the complex and variety of the data load. Network bridges also do not incur any communication between network path the physical hosts of the data.
Bridges will always be very useful within LAN networks, although in the future they will be most likely be improved on and altered to be able to reduce their limitations and work on larger networks like WAN.
Jack leach 