Which table is utilized by a switch to determine the forwarding path of a frame?

Which table is utilized by a switch to determine the forwarding path of a frame?

• A. Routing table
• B. MAC address table
• C. ARP cache
• D. IP address table

Answer: (B)

A switch uses the MAC address table to determine the forwarding path of a frame. This table maintains a mapping of MAC addresses to the specific ports on the switch where devices are located. When a frame arrives at the switch, it examines the destination MAC address and looks it up in the MAC address table. If it finds a match, the switch forwards the frame only to the port associated with that MAC address, thereby efficiently managing network traffic by reducing unnecessary broadcasting. By contrast, the routing table is used by routers to make decisions about where to forward packets based on IP addresses, rather than MAC addresses. The ARP cache stores mappings of IP addresses to MAC addresses but does not play a role in the direct forwarding of frames by switches. The IP address table, while useful for routers, is also not relevant to the process used by a switch to forward frames based on layer 2 addressing.

A switch uses the MAC address table to determine the forwarding path of a frame. This table maintains a mapping of MAC addresses to the specific ports on the switch where devices are located. When a frame arrives at the switch, it examines the destination MAC address and looks it up in the MAC address table. If it finds a match, the switch forwards the frame only to the port associated with that MAC address, thereby efficiently managing network traffic by reducing unnecessary broadcasting.

By contrast, the routing table is used by routers to make decisions about where to forward packets based on IP addresses, rather than MAC addresses. The ARP cache stores mappings of IP addresses to MAC addresses but does not play a role in the direct forwarding of frames by switches. The IP address table, while useful for routers, is also not relevant to the process used by a switch to forward frames based on layer 2 addressing.