Doug Vitale Tech Blog

Layer 3 switches compared to routers

Any student of computer networking has surely heard it repeated a thousand times: switches
work at Layer 2 of the OSI model and interpret MAC addresses, while routers work at Layer
3 and interpret IP addresses. In other words, a switch looks at the MAC address of the
destination host and sends the frame only to that recipient (thus conserving bandwidth). A
router directs network traffic in a similar manner, but references the target IP address instead
of its MAC address (on a side note, those devices marketed as routers for home users
generally provide more functionality than mere packet routing, such as IP address assignment
(DHCP) and firewall filtering). Broadly speaking, switches connect hosts from the same
network together while a router can connect whole networks together. To say this in IT
Speak: switches connect hosts to form local area networks (LANs) while routers connect
multiple LANs into wide area networks (WANs).
In addition to traffic forwarding based on MAC address, switches also detect packet
collisions and can simultaneously manage multiple data streams destined to multiple ports.
Routers, for their part, can perform network address translation (NAT) and basic packet
filtering based on access control lists (ACLs).
With conventional switches and routers performing markedly different functions at layer 2
and layer 3 respectively, just what is meant by the term layer 3 switch? Isnt this
contradictory?

Cisco Catalyst 4948, a Layer 3 switch

Routers and L3 switches similarities

Here is how layer 3 (L3) switches actually function in computer networks. An L3 switch is
both a switch and a router. How? Because its a router with multiple Ethernet ports and
therefore has a switching function. It switches packets by inspecting both their IP addresses
and their MAC addresses. L3 switches are thus able to segregate ports into separate virtual
LANs (VLANs) and perform the routing between them.
L3 switches can also be configured to support routing protocols such as RIP, OSPF, and
EIGRP.

Given that L3 switches perform functions associated with both Layer 2 and Layer 3, it is
technically inaccurate to label them Layer 3 switches. A more appropriate (but less
common) name is multilayer switch. These devices were previously called brouters.

Routers and L3 switches differences

Wikipedia claims that The major difference between the packet switching operation of a
router and that of a Layer 3 switch is the physical implementation. In general purpose routers,
packet switching takes place using software that runs on a microprocessor, whereas a Layer 3
switch performs this using dedicated application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)
hardware.
Another noteworthy difference is that L3 switches will not offer the same WAN-type ports
(serial, T1, T3, etc.) that a standard router will.
From a software perspective, L3 switches are not capable of the extra services that routers
typically provide, such as NAT, NetFlow, and Quality of Service (QoS).

A multilayer switch performing L2 and L3 functions