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From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>
Organization: Softweyr.com
To: "Per Engelbrecht" <per@xterm.dk>, <scrappy@hub.org>
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 14:25:34 -0800
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cc: freebsd-net@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Looking for switch recommendations ...
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On Friday 26 March 2004 11:25 am, Per Engelbrecht wrote:
> > What is the difference between Layer2 and Layer3, and what does
> > that affect?
>
> All switching is done in layer2!

Not true!

> Layer3 switch 'features' (functionality) is was the vendor put in the
> box. Depending on the amount of $ you're going to spent, you can have
> switches that can act as routers.

In the Xylan (now Alcatel) second-generation switches (The "X-Frame" 
backplane) the switching hardward was capable of switching on the MAC 
header *or* other predefined parts of the packet if no MAC header matches 
were found.  This feature was used to implement hardware routing (the HRE-X 
module), allowing us to route packets between IP networks at a million 
packets per second.

-- 
         "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"

Wes Peters                                              wes@softweyr.com