[c-nsp] Cisco Layer 3 Switch Recommendation

[Martin Robinson]

Hmmm...so what is the technical difference between a router and a switch.. I feel it's time for a brief history lesson of product marketing..

Fisrt there was coax.. then came the hub.. then to connect different networks at layer 2 came the Bridge(get your osi model out, Princess Diana Never Tried Snogging Prince Andrew, or Physical, Data-link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, Application)  The bridge was was software based, then came the router to connect differnet physical layer networks, token ring to etherent (layer2) via layer 3 ip/ipx/appletalk. Then some clever chaps managed to squeeze the briging software onto a n asic.. and the humble bridge became a switch. Leaving the poor old router still running on software, them some even clever chaps manged to squeeze the routing code onto another asic. Then things got confusing thanks to the marketeers, the called this a layer 3 switch.. but unlike the bridge which faded away with ipx and arcnet, Cisco had sold far too many routers to let this one sail into the night, so cleverly only release lan interfaces for the layer 3 switch (okay appart from the flex wan module for the 6500)... and  i think that's where we are today.

Martin.

 
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Martin Robinson
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-----Original Message-----
From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net
[mailto:cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net]On Behalf Of Randy Bush
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 1:35 PM
To: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
Subject: Re: [c-nsp] Cisco Layer 3 Switch Recommendation


ok, i gotta ask.  'switches' do layers 3 & 4 (bgp, ...).  'routers
do layer 2 (atm, atmv2, ...).  so what is the technical difference
between a router and a switch?

randy

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