Switching is the connection technique or process of transferring and delivering data from one interface to another interface by choosing the best route among the devices. In large networks, there might be multiple paths linking sender and receiver. Information may be switched as it travels through various communication channels. There are four typical switching techniques available for digital traffic.

There are three types of switching techniques used between sender and receiver during communication. They are:

Circuit switching is mainly used in telecommunication technology in which two networks nodes establish dedicated communication channels or circuits before the node communicates. Published Switched Telephone Networks is one example of circuit switching techniques.

Packet switching is the latest digital networking communication method that uses the data in terms of packets and manages transmission resources efficiently. While communicating it groups all the transmitted data into suitably sized blocks called packets. Internet is the best example of packet switching.

The message switching technique is mostly used and replaced circuit-switched data networks in which messages can be stored temporally at message switches. In this technique, each message contains addressing information, and each switch is read and transferred to the related path. The email system is an example of message switching.