Hello,
Switch Fabric
- this is generally a hardware component within a switch/router that is responsible for rapidly switching packets from one interface to another
Switch Capacity
- this is the maximum rate at which a switching fabric can switch packets. This is typically provided in packets per second (pps) values
Maximum Forwarding Bandwidth
- since the switching capacity is generally given in pps, you can get the forwarding capacity in bits per second by multiplying the pps value by the average packet size (in bits)
Forwarding Rate:
- the rate at which a switch/router can forward packets. This term is really synomynous with "Switching Capacity" and "maximum forwarding bandwidth"
Wire-Speed Forwarding Rate:
- a switch/router can achieve this if it can drive all interfaces at their maximum rates
Hope that helps - pls rate the post if it does.
Paresh.