What Is a Layer 3 Switch?

A Layer 3 switch is a high-performance device for network routing. Layer 3 switches actually
differ very little from routers. A Layer 3 switch can support the same routing protocols as
network routers do. Both inspect incoming packets and make dynamic routing decisions based
on the source and destination addresses inside. Both types of boxes share a similar appearance.
Layer 3 switches were conceived as a technology to improve on the performance of routers used
in large local area networks (LANs) like corporate intranets. The key difference between Layer 3
switches and routers lies in the hardware technology used to build the unit. The hardware inside
a Layer 3 switch merges that of traditional switches and routers, replacing some of a router's
software logic with hardware to offer better performance in some situations.
Layer 3 switches often cost less than traditional routers. Designed for use within local networks,
a Layer 3 switch will typically not possess the WAN ports and wide area network features a
traditional router will always have.
[Concerning routing they are quite the same... But.
L3 switch first of all is a switch. Therefore it has all switching capabilities and implements it in
hardware. Some switches (3750, 3560, ...) implement L3. These functions are routing protocols,
DHCP etc. Routing protocols are implemented but nothing else. Switch works using CEF as a
main and only forwarding capability and routing protocols serves to fill RIB and then - to fill
CEF. Routing (L3 forwarding) therefore is also implemented in hardware. You can't turn CEF
off and also you can't use any other interface type besides Ethernet.
Router has more L3 functions. It has NAT, OER/PfR, L3 QoS, MPLS, ... You may say that 6500
also does but 6500 is ... not so simple siwitch
ISRs for eample implement all features in software, but they may use large number of different
interfaces, and they, of course, does not work good in switching environment. But they can ]
What Is a Layer 2 Switch?
A network switch or switching hub is a computer networking device that connects network segments or
network devices. The term commonly refers to a multi-port network bridge that processes and routes
data at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model. Switches that additionally process data at the
network layer (layer 3) and above are often referred to as layer-3 switches or multilayer switches.
A network bridge, operating at the data link layer, may interconnect a small number of devices in
a home or the office. This is a trivial case of bridging, in which the bridge learns the MAC
address of each connected device.
Single bridges also can provide extremely high performance in specialized applications such as
storage area networks.
Classic bridges may also interconnect using a spanning tree protocol that disables links so that
the resulting local area network is a tree without loops. In contrast to routers, spanning tree
bridges must have topologies with only one active path between two points. The older IEEE
802.1D spanning tree protocol could be quite slow, with forwarding stopping for 30 seconds
while the spanning tree would reconverge. A Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol was introduced as
IEEE 802.1w, but the newest edition of IEEE 802.1D adopts the 802.1w extensions as the base
standard.
The IETF is specifying the TRILL protocol, which is the application of link-state routing
technology to the layer-2 bridging problem. Devices which implement TRILL, called RBridges,
combine the best features of both routers and bridges.
While layer 2 switch remains more of a marketing term than a technical term,
[citation needed]
the
products that were introduced as "switches" tended to use microsegmentation and Full duplex to
prevent collisions among devices connected to Ethernet. By using an internal forwarding plane
much faster than any interface, they give the impression of simultaneous paths among multiple
devices. 'Non-blocking' devices use a forwarding plane or equivalent method fast enough to
allow full duplex traffic for each port simultaneously.
Once a bridge learns the topology through a spanning tree protocol, it forwards data link layer
frames using a layer 2 forwarding method. There are four forwarding methods a bridge can use,
of which the second through fourth method were performance-increasing methods when used on
"switch" products with the same input and output port bandwidths:
1. Store and forward: The switch buffers and verifies each frame before forwarding it.
2. Cut through: The switch reads only up to the frame's hardware address before starting to
forward it. Cut-through switches have to fall back to store and forward if the outgoing
port is busy at the time the packet arrives. There is no error checking with this method.
3. Fragment free: A method that attempts to retain the benefits of both store and forward
and cut through. Fragment free checks the first 64 bytes of the frame, where addressing
information is stored. According to Ethernet specifications, collisions should be detected
during the first 64 bytes of the frame, so frames that are in error because of a collision
will not be forwarded. This way the frame will always reach its intended destination.
Error checking of the actual data in the packet is left for the end device.
4. Adaptive switching: A method of automatically selecting between the other three modes.
While there are specialized applications, such as storage area networks, where the input and
output interfaces are the same bandwidth, this is not always the case in general LAN
applications. In LANs, a switch used for end user access typically concentrates lower bandwidth
and uplinks into a higher bandwidth.

When do I need a VLAN?
You need to consider using VLANs in any of the following situations:
You have more than 200 devices on your LAN
You have a lot of broadcast traffic on your LAN
Groups of users need more security or are being slowed down by too many broadcasts?
Groups of users need to be on the same broadcast domain because they are running the same
applications. An example would be a company that has VoIP phones. The users using the phone
could be on a different VLAN, not with the regular users.
Or, just to make a single switch into multiple virtual switches.
Why not just subnet my network?
A common question is why not just subnet the network instead of using VLANs? Each VLAN
should be in its own subnet. The benefit that a VLAN provides over a subnetted network is that
devices in different physical locations, not going back to the same router, can be on the same
network. The limitation of subnetting a network with a router is that all devices on that subnet
must be connected to the same switch and that switch must be connected to a port on the router.
With a VLAN, one device can be connected to one switch, another device can be connected to another
switch, and those devices can still be on the same VLAN (broadcast domain).
What is a trunk port?
When there is a link between two switches or a router and a switch that carries the traffic of more
than one VLAN, that port is a trunk port.
A trunk port must run a special trunking protocol. The protocol used would be Ciscos
proprietary Inter-switch link (ISL) or the IEEE standard 802.1q.
Routing Protocols

This article gives a high level overview of the routing protocols, and how they fit into our online lives.
out the
TCP/IP protocol suite. All of those protocols are routed ones, but what are they in turn routed
by? Read on to get a high level overview of the routing protocols, and how they fit into our
online lives.
The routed vs. the routing
There has always been a great attraction for me to the networking protocols. I dont know why I
have always been fascinated by them, but they do interest me greatly. A good deal of my time
has been spent studying and playing with the protocols contained in the TCP/IP protocol suite.
What all those protocols have in common is that they are routed protocols. This begs the
question of what routes them? A very good question indeed, and one that a great many books
have been written about.
What I shall cover in this article is a breakdown of what routing protocols are. How they work,
and what kinds of routing protocols there are. Things I wont be covering are the Cisco IOS
syntax used when configuring these routing protocols. Quite a few excellent books out there
already do an admirable job of doing just that. Instead, as mentioned, I will concentrate on giving
you a high level overview of what routing protocols are, the various types, and what it is that
they do.
Onwards and upwards
Well we already know that the packets generated by our computers are comprised of routed
protocols. These protocols in turn need to be routed if they are to reach their intended recipients.
How does a packet ultimately get to its destination? Well this is accomplished via it being routed
by a series of routers, and this is also done primarily via the IP address listed in the IP header.
With this simplistic explanation in hand we will now take a look at the two categories of routing
protocols.
The routing protocols themselves are broken down into two groups. Those are the IGP and EGP,
or Interior Gateway Protocols, and Exterior Gateway Protocols. Much like their respective names
infer, one group is used internally and the other externally. For example the IGP series of routing
protocols are used on internal networks, and the EGP series of routing protocols is used on the
actual Internet itself. What does that all really mean though? Well it means that when you do the
initial configuration of your, in all likelihood, Cisco router that you will need to choose what
type of routing protocol to install and configure.
Now is as good a time as any to list the various types of routing protocols for each group. Interior
Gateway Protocols are comprised of the following;
IGRP: Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
EIGRP: Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
OSPF: Open Shortest Path First
RIP: Routing Information Protocol
IS-IS: Intermediate System Intermediate System
For Exterior Gateway Protocols there are;
EGP: Exterior Gateway Protocol
BGP: Border Gateway Protocol
Interior Gateway Protocols
We can see from the above noted examples of IGP protocols that there are several of them. Are
they all used in todays internal networks? Well I suppose they very well could be, but likely the
most common ones used today are OSPF and RIP. With that in hand lets go over RIP. RIP is
what is called a dynamic routing protocol. What that means is that it will automatically figure out
routing tables on its own. In other words the system administrator does not have to manually
input all the various routes. That would be a serious pain in the butt!
So RIP will automatically compute the routes, as well as secondary routes to be used in case a
primary path should fail. If you are thinking that this sounds like load balancing you would
indeed be correct. Another key piece of information to remember about RIP is that it is a
distance vector protocol. Seen as this article is only a high level overview I will say only that
distance vector involves the method of discovering routes. For more information on this very
important topic please click here. Some key points to remember about RIP are that it uses port
520 and uses UDP as its transport protocol.
OSPF is the other commonly used IGP. A key differentiator between RIP and OSPF is that
OSPF is a link state protocol. This simply means that it uses a different way to build its routing
tables. OSPF enabled routers will advertise metrics which contain the information that the other
OSPF enabled routers will use to build its routing tables. It is as simple and as complicated as
that. Further reading can be found here. Also, as above, some key points to remember are that
OSPF supports multicasting and subnets. Lastly, OSPF uses IP, and not TCP or UDP.
Exterior Gateway Protocols
Well we covered the two main IGPs at a very high level, but what about the EGP protocols?
Well lets indeed take a look at the two better known ones. BGP or Border Gateway Protocol is
the routing protocol in use today by the routers which populate the Internet. By that I mean
routers that are used by your ISP for example, or what are also called Internet facing routers.
These routers form the backbone of the Internet and BGP v4 is what is currently running on
them. Much like RIP above, BGP is essentially itself a distance vector protocol or algorithm.
One notable fact about BGP is that it uses TCP for its transport protocol and will communicate
via port 179. In other words, routing tables are exchanged using TCP for transport and done via
port 179. With that said about BGP, what is there to know about EGP? Well realistically not a
whole lot as it is not really used anymore. It has been replaced, if you will, by BGP. Should you
wish to read more about it please click here.
Well as you can see I was not kidding about the high-level overview of routing protocols. There
have literally been thick books written on BGP alone. It really is impossible to cover all about
these routing protocols in one article, let alone a book. What this article hopes to convey rather is
the diversity within the routing protocols themselves, and the difference between them and the
routed protocols. What can you do to learn more about these routing protocols? I have always
been a big believer in putting concepts into practice. It is, in my opinion, the only way to really
learn and furthermore cement lessons learnt.
To that end you should, if financially possible, pick up some used Cisco networking gear. They
are not all that expensive to buy and will pay dividends in your quest to know more about how
traffic is actually routed. Further to buying some networking gear I would advise you to use
programs such as Nemesis which will allow you to craft RIP, OSPF, and IGMP amongst others.
Being able to craft some routing protocol packets will also let you see how they react to certain
stimulus. Packet crafting is how I initially taught myself about TCP/IP, and I would certainly
encourage you to do so with these routing protocols. Doing so will force you to learn more about
the protocol itself and how it works. Lastly, as mentioned, getting some networking gear really is
the key as much of the protocol configurations must be done via this hardware. You will only get
so far by actually reading. If you really are on a limited budget then you may wish to buy one of
many available simulators.
Well this brings to an end my high-level overview of routing protocols. I hope that this is enough
to whet your appetite and push you to further study this critically important area of computer
networks. As always I welcome your feedback, and on that note till next time!