Switching interviews are a crucial part of the hiring process in Networking domain, designed to assess your skills, experiences, and suitability for a new role. Whether you’re transitioning between industries or simply looking for a change, being well-prepared for switching interview questions is essential. Here in this post we have listed 100+ Top Switching Interview Questions for IT Networking professionals.
Here are 100+ Top Switching Interview Questions:
General Switching Questions:
- What is switching in networking?
- Differentiate between circuit switching and packet switching.
- Explain the concept of store-and-forward in switching.
- What is the purpose of a switch in a network?
- Define MAC address and how it is used in switching.
- Differentiate between a hub, a switch, and a router.
- Explain the difference between layer 2 and layer 3 switches.
- What is the significance of VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks) in switching?
- How does a switch learn MAC addresses?
- What is the CAM table in networking?
Ethernet Switching:
- Explain how Ethernet switching works.
- What is the function of the Ethernet frame header?
- Differentiate between half-duplex and full-duplex communication.
- How does a switch handle broadcast traffic?
- Explain the purpose of the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) in Ethernet switching.
- What are the advantages of using Gigabit Ethernet over Fast Ethernet?
Layer 2 Switching:
- Describe the process of frame forwarding in layer 2 switching.
- What is the purpose of the Source Address Table (SAT) in layer 2 switching?
- Explain the term “collision domain” in the context of layer 2 switching.
- How does a switch handle multicast traffic?
- What is the purpose of the Ingress and Egress VLANs in layer 2 switching?
Layer 3 Switching:
- Define layer 3 switching.
- How does layer 3 switching differ from routing?
- Explain the concept of IP routing in layer 3 switching.
- What is the role of the routing table in layer 3 switching?
- How are VLANs related to layer 3 switching?
Switch Security:
- What are some common security threats in switching?
- How does port security work in a switch?
- Explain the concept of MAC address filtering.
- What is the purpose of 802.1x authentication in switching?
- How can VLANs be used for enhancing network security?
Troubleshooting Switching Issues:
- Describe the steps you would take to troubleshoot a network connectivity issue.
- How can you identify a loop in a switched network?
- What is the purpose of the show commands in switch troubleshooting?
- Explain how you would troubleshoot a VLAN-related problem.
- How can you identify a broadcast storm in a switch?
Advanced Switching Technologies:
- Explain the concept of Quality of Service (QoS) in switching.
- What is Multicast switching, and how is it implemented in switches?
- Describe the benefits of using Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) over STP.
- How does Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) enhance switch reliability?
- What is the role of Power over Ethernet (PoE) in switching?
Switching and Virtualization:
- How do virtual switches differ from physical switches?
- Explain the integration of switches with virtualization technologies.
- What is Network Function Virtualization (NFV) in the context of switching?
- How does software-defined networking (SDN) impact switching?
Industry Trends and Innovations:
- Discuss the role of automation in modern switching environments.
- How is Artificial Intelligence (AI) influencing network switching?
- What are the implications of 5G on network switching?
- Explain the concept of Intent-Based Networking (IBN) in switching.
- How are cloud-native technologies impacting network switching?
