ARP requests for example. Everytime you need to send something to an ipaddress and its not in your arp table your computer will send an ARP request to find the MAC address to send to.
On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 2:03 PM, RM <[email protected]> wrote: > I'll add that broadcast traffic can be curtailed if some diligence is > exercised. On a modern network, what's left that sends broadcasts? > Browser elections? DHCP requests? For name resolution, I think modern > Windows systems only broadcast as a last resort. > > I'm curious to hear discussion about what else comprises the bulk of the > broadcast traffic on a modern network. > > RM > > > On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:41 -0800, "Kurt Buff" <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > traffic. Computers are chatty things, and frequently send out > > broadcast packets of various types. This broadcast traffic is one of > > the reasons why routers are in such demand - they separate broadcast > > domains, just like switches separate collision domains for Ethernet. > > > > There's also good reason why /24 (aka 255.255.255.0) is such a popular > > network size - after a certain point, the broadcast traffic on a > > network starts to affect the performance of the hosts on the network, > > because so much overhead is dedicated to processing the broadcast > > packets. > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
