network switch
Enable an AI agent to recognise a physical network switch, assess its forwarding and operational state, and determine which connection or configuration changes are appropriate.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
Researched by: Codex + Grok
Purpose and description
Enable an AI agent to recognise a physical network switch, assess its forwarding and operational state, and determine which connection or configuration changes are appropriate.
A network switch is a multiport IEEE 802 bridging appliance that learns source MAC addresses into a forwarding database and selectively forwards Ethernet frames toward the destination port or ports, giving each port its own collision domain and, with VLANs or Layer-3 features, also partitioning broadcast domains or routing between IP subnets.
It can be Inspect device identity, interface state, forwarding information and health through available authorised interfaces.; Connect, disconnect or replace compatible cables and transceivers after checking affected services.; Configure supported port, VLAN, aggregation and loop-prevention settings within the agent's authority.; Enable, disable or cycle supported port power after identifying the attached device and interruption consequences.; Capture diagnostics or configure traffic mirroring when supported and authorised.; Back up configuration, update software, restart or replace the switch with a verified recovery path..
Distinguishing features
Distinguish it from a hub by establishing whether it selectively forwards frames using learned or configured forwarding information rather than repeating traffic indiscriminately.
Distinguish it from a router-only device by establishing whether it provides switching between ports within a link-layer network; routing support does not by itself exclude a switch.
Distinguish it from a passive patch panel by verifying powered packet-processing interfaces and active forwarding capability.
Distinguish this PHY entry from a virtual switch by identifying a physical chassis or module that provides the switching function.
Distinguish one physical switch from a stack or fabric by identifying its hardware boundary even when several devices share a management identity.
Scope
+ Chassis identity, installed modules, software version and role in a stack or fabric
+ Physical ports, transceivers, link capabilities and attached endpoints
+ Local forwarding, VLAN membership, loop prevention and supported routing functions
+ Management access, configuration state and controls governing changes
+ Power, cooling, traffic health and maintenance readiness
- Network-wide topology design, addressing plans and segmentation policy
- Internal state and configuration of attached computers, servers or access points
- Cable installation, pathways and certification beyond their interface with switch ports
- Dedicated router, firewall or wireless-controller functions outside this device
- Upstream electrical distribution and room-level cooling infrastructure
Characteristics
- Switching technology
- Ethernet, Fibre Channel, other documented technology, unknown Determines which interface, forwarding and interoperability questions apply.
- Hardware and software identity
- Manufacturer, model, hardware revision and firmware or operating-system version Connects observed behaviour and supported actions to the correct device documentation.
- Physical assembly membership
- Standalone chassis, member of named stack or fabric, module in named chassis Identifies whether an action can affect more than the individual physical unit.
- Port capabilities
- Per-port media, connector, supported rates, breakout modes and transceiver restrictions Determines which connections can be made and which component combinations are supported.
- Negotiated link rate
- bit/s per active interface Reveals actual link capacity and mismatches with expected operation.
- Interface operational state
- Administrative state, link state and forwarding eligibility, recorded separately Separates intentional shutdown, physical failure and protocol-imposed blocking.
- Segmentation and forwarding membership
- Port-to-VLAN, bridge-domain, aggregation-group or technology-specific membership Shows where traffic may travel and what a port change could expose or interrupt.
- Traffic and error observations
- bit/s, packets/s, errors, discards and counter deltas over a stated interval Supports diagnosis of congestion, faulty links and unexpected traffic.
- Power delivery budget
- W available, allocated and delivered, where Power over Ethernet is supported Determines whether attached powered devices can be added or maintained.
- Configuration persistence
- Active and startup configurations aligned, divergent, unavailable or unknown Indicates whether a restart may change forwarding or management behaviour.
Also called
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 5 bundles · 9 layers · 16 findings · 24 questions.
Switch identity and boundary Establish what physical switching device is represented and which capabilities belong to it.
A shared management address or product label can conceal multiple physical members and different forwarding capabilities.
Physical switch boundary
Separate the physical unit from its modules and any larger switching assembly.
Chassis and membership
Record physical identifiers and evidence of standalone, modular, stack or fabric membership.
- Which chassis or module is this registry instance, and which serial number or asset identifier distinguishes it? definition
- Does its management identity represent this unit alone or a larger stack or fabric? boundary
Supported switching functions
Establish the switching technology and functions available on the installed hardware and software.
Capability evidence
Distinguish documented capability, enabled functionality and unverified assumptions.
- Which switching technology and optional routing or power-delivery functions does this exact device support? definition
- Which inspected device output or documentation establishes those capabilities for the installed modules, software and licences? provenance
Ports and attached links Describe usable physical interfaces and the connections currently carried by them.
Connection decisions depend on port-specific compatibility, negotiated operation and the identity of the attached neighbour.
Port compatibility
Identify interface media, supported operating modes and installed pluggable components.
Interface and transceiver fit
Record which cable, transceiver and speed combinations are supported at each port.
- What connector, media, supported rates and breakout configuration apply to each physical port? definition
- What evidence confirms that each installed transceiver and cable combination is supported? provenance
Live link relationships
Connect port observations to neighbour identity and actual link operation.
Neighbour and link state
Record attached endpoints, negotiated link properties and uncertainty in neighbour discovery.
- Which device and remote interface are attached to each port, and how was that relationship verified? provenance
- What are the current administrative state, link state, negotiated rate and applicable duplex or negotiation settings? measurement
Forwarding and traffic separation Describe the local rules and protocol states that determine where traffic can pass.
A live physical link does not establish forwarding permission, isolation or freedom from loops.
Forwarding domains
Identify port membership and local forwarding boundaries using the applicable switching technology.
Segment membership and reachability
Record VLANs or equivalent domains, forwarding entries and any local crossing of segmentation boundaries.
- For Ethernet operation, which VLANs are tagged or untagged on each port, and what happens to untagged ingress traffic? definition
- Which forwarding entries, local routing functions or filtering rules determine whether traffic can reach another port or segment? boundary
Loop prevention and aggregation
Describe mechanisms that coordinate redundant paths and grouped interfaces.
Redundant path state
Record applicable loop-control roles, blocked paths and aggregation membership before changing connectivity.
- Which loop-prevention or fabric mechanism applies, and which ports are forwarding, blocked or otherwise excluded by it? measurement
- Before adding or removing a link, what aggregation membership and peer-side configuration must be checked to avoid a loop or loss of connectivity? action
Switch health and change control Relate operating health and management access to the consequences and recoverability of a change.
A switch can continue passing some traffic while suffering faults, and an incorrect change can remove the access needed to recover it.
Forwarding and power health
Assess traffic impairment, chassis health and power availability using time-bounded observations.
Service-affecting health
Record traffic errors and resource alarms with enough context to judge their effect.
- Over what observation interval are interface errors, discards, utilisation and relevant queue or forwarding-resource limits measured? measurement
- What power-supply, fan, temperature or supported PoE-budget readings indicate an active constraint or fault? measurement
Management and recovery
Establish who may change the switch and how management and forwarding can be restored.
Authorised recoverable change
Record management paths, configuration persistence, affected dependencies and recovery prerequisites.
- Which authorised management path and access role permit the proposed change, and could that change interrupt the same path? action
- Before applying or restarting, which affected links, configuration backup, startup-state check and rollback or console recovery steps are required? action
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Kinds and varieties
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Unmanaged Ethernet switch (fixed, no operator configuration)
- Smart or lightly managed switch (web GUI, basic VLANs and QoS)
- Fully managed Layer-2 switch (CLI/SNMP, spanning tree, 802.1X, monitoring)
- Layer-3 / multilayer switch (ASIC IP routing, typically OSPF or BGP)
- PoE / PoE+ / PoE++ access switch (powers phones, cameras, access points)
- Data-center switch (top-of-rack or leaf/spine, 25-400 GbE, often VXLAN/EVPN)
- Industrial or hardened DIN-rail switch (extended temperature, often ring redundancy)
- Modular chassis campus or core switch (supervisor, line cards, redundant fabric)
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of network switch this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Identifiers and schemes
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Wikidata - Q174889 - Item for the Ethernet/LAN network switch, not a wall switch or railway points.
- UNSPSC - 43222612 - Commodity code used in procurement catalogues for network switches.
- HS / Harmonized System - 8517.62 - Covers machines for reception, conversion and transmission of data, including switching apparatus; shared with routers and similar gear.
- Vendor SKU - vendor-specific (e.g. Cisco Catalyst C9300-48P, Juniper EX4300-48P, Aruba 6300M) - The identifier actually used to order, inventory, and replace a unit.
- Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of network switch this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Standards and regulation
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- IEEE 802.1Q - IEEE (bridging, VLANs, spanning tree as now published in 802.1Q)
- IEEE 802.3 including 802.3af/at/bt - IEEE (Ethernet PHYs and Power over Ethernet)
- IEEE 802.1AX - IEEE (link aggregation); IEEE 802.1X - IEEE (port-based access control); IEEE 802.1AB - IEEE (LLDP); IEEE 802.1AE - IEEE (MACsec)
- RFC 4541 - IETF (IGMP/MLD snooping on switches)
- IEC 62368-1 - IEC (safety of AV/ICT equipment); UL/cUL listing in North America
- CISPR 32 / FCC Part 15 - CISPR / FCC (emissions for ITE)
- ISO/IEC 11801 and TIA-568 - ISO/IEC and TIA (structured cabling the switch terminates)
- EU CE marking, WEEE, and Ecodesign/network-standby rules; ENERGY STAR Small Network Equipment - U.S. EPA (for some small switches)
- Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of network switch this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Office wiring closet or IDF: 24- or 48-port 1G/mGig access switches with PoE feeding PCs, IP phones, cameras, and Wi-Fi access points.
- Home and small office: 5-16 port desktop gigabit switches used to expand a single router LAN port.
- Data centre: top-of-rack or leaf/spine fabrics connecting servers at 25/100/400 GbE, often with EVPN-VXLAN overlay.
- Campus aggregation/core: chassis or high-density fibre switches collapsing many access closets.
- Factory and process plants: DIN-rail industrial Ethernet switches on PROFINET or EtherNet/IP rings.
- Broadcast and AV-over-IP: managed switches carrying Dante, NDI, or SMPTE ST 2110 with PTP timing.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of network switch this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Fixed port count - 5-48 (chassis systems much higher) - ports
- Port line rate - 1-10 (access); 25-400 (data centre); historical 0.01-0.1 still seen - Gbit/s
- Aggregate switching capacity - 10-200 (small/access); 1 000-100 000+ (data-centre/chassis) - Gbit/s
- Store-and-forward or cut-through latency - 0.3-50 - µs
- MAC forwarding-table size - 8 000-512 000 - entries
- System power draw (excluding large PoE loads) - 3-50 (desktop/unmanaged); 100-2 000+ (stack/chassis) - W
- PoE power budget - 0-2 000 - W
- Operating ambient temperature - 0-40 (commercial); −40-75 (industrial) - °C
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of network switch this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Layer-2 loop with spanning tree off or broken: broadcast storm that saturates every port.
- CAM/MAC-table overflow (including intentional MAC flooding) forcing unknown-unicast flood.
- STP/RSTP reconvergence, bad root-bridge priority, or BPDU-filter mistakes causing a multi-second or persistent outage.
- Speed/duplex mismatch and CRC/alignment errors on copper links.
- PoE overdraw, PSE/PD negotiation failure, or cable heating on high-power ports.
- TCAM, ACL, or route-scale exhaustion: packets dropped or punted to a saturated control-plane CPU.
- Fan, PSU, or pluggable-optics failure; stacking split-brain after a stack-cable or member crash.
- Open access ports without 802.1X as an insertion point; firmware bugs enabling control-plane DoS.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of network switch this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Retail language: many markets still call any LAN box a 'hub' or 'router'; Japanese and Korean procurement commonly writes L2スイッチ / L3スイッチ.
- Mains and marks: North America 120 V with UL/cUL; EU 230 V with CE, WEEE, and Ecodesign; China CCC and a large domestic vendor set (Huawei, H3C, Ruijie).
- Access speeds: Wi-Fi 6/6E roll-outs pushed 2.5G/5G mGig access switches earlier in some East Asian and enterprise-US campuses than in SMB Europe.
- Telecom usage of 'switch' still often means a PSTN/PBX circuit switch rather than an Ethernet bridge, especially in older operator inventories.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of network switch this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.
- Ethernet hub / repeater - A hub shares one collision domain and floods every frame to every port; a switch learns MACs and forwards per port (IEEE 802.1 bridge vs 802.3 repeater).
- Router - A router forwards on IP (or other L3) between networks and does not bridge a single LAN by MAC; a pure L2 switch does not route. A Layer-3 switch does both, but the test is whether the box is bridging a VLAN or routing between subnets.
- Transparent bridge - Same 802.1 forwarding model; in practice a 'bridge' is two-port or software, a 'switch' is a multiport hardware appliance. Functionally a switch is a multiport bridge.
- Firewall / UTM - A firewall inspects and filters by policy/state; a switch forwards on MAC/VLAN (and maybe IP) without session policy unless ACLs or a firewall blade are added.
- Software / virtual switch (e.g. Open vSwitch) - Same bridging abstraction, but it is a host or hypervisor function, not a standalone PHY.OBJ appliance.
- Telephone / circuit switch (PBX or PSTN exchange) - Sets up a reserved circuit between endpoints; a network switch forwards packets/frames statistically. Shared English name only.
- Electrical wall switch or railway points ('switch') - Electromechanical make/break or track-changing devices; they do not learn MAC addresses or forward Ethernet frames.
- Media converter - A media converter is a two-sided PHY (e.g. copper-to-fibre) with no MAC learning table; a switch has a forwarding database and three or more ports in normal use.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of network switch this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Sources
- IEEE Std 802.1Q: IEEE Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area Networks - Bridges and Bridged Networks - Normative model of a VLAN-aware bridge: forwarding database, VLANs, spanning tree, and the behaviour that distinguishes a switch from a hub or router.
- IEEE Std 802.3: IEEE Standard for Ethernet - Physical and MAC-layer port types, speeds, and Power over Ethernet (802.3af/at/bt) that real switch products implement.
- RFC 4541: Considerations for Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) and Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) Snooping Switches - How production switches constrain multicast flooding; issued by the IETF.
- network switch (Q174889) - Stable public identifier and sitelinks for the Ethernet/LAN switching appliance sense.
What the second pass must settle
- Does the registry intend network switch to cover Ethernet only, or also Fibre Channel and other physical switching technologies?
- Should a modular switching card be an instance of this entry or a separately registered component linked to a chassis?
- Which existing Vercy models own stacks, fabrics and embedded routing functions, and where should this model link to them?
- Which device-specific sources establish supported transceivers, operational limits, available diagnostics and recovery procedures?
- What evidence freshness and service-impact criteria are required before an agent may classify a switch as healthy or ready for change?