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Although it may seem contradictory to speak of "traditional" approaches when describing an activity as relatively young as designing switched LANs, there are a number of respects in which established practices dominate thinking in LAN design. Existing LAN design practices are based on a number of assumptions about LAN switch capabilities that are no longer valid. Significant savings can be realized and efficiencies can be gained by reducing the number of tiers in the LAN switching network.
Read this Gartner Research report to learn about maximizing LAN performance by minimizing LAN switch Tiers.