On the other hand, 6500s can do both L2 and L3 rather well, including BGP.
Aren't most of the 6500 blades the same as the 7600 ones anyway? Between these two IMHO we are looking at a blurry distinction between a router with very good switching capabilities and a L3 switch with very good routing capabilities.
Until the Sup720, it was simple: 6500 with Sup2/MSFC2/PFC2 and at least one OSM equals 7600. The difference is mostly a marketing one. I don't understand how you can differentiate between a router and an L3 switch. In my view "L3 switch" is a marketing term. All high end boxes do hardware based IP forwarding, whether their ancestry is from the L2 or the L3 side. Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug@nethelp.no
On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 sthaug@nethelp.no wrote:
I don't understand how you can differentiate between a router and an L3 switch. In my view "L3 switch" is a marketing term. All high end boxes do hardware based IP forwarding, whether their ancestry is from the L2 or the L3 side.
To me something that uses hardware assist, setup by the cpu per destination, is an L3 Switch. Something that does equal route lookups per packet all the time is a router. -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se
On Mon, Oct 13, 2003 at 11:10:32PM +0200, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 sthaug@nethelp.no wrote:
I don't understand how you can differentiate between a router and an L3 switch. In my view "L3 switch" is a marketing term. All high end boxes do hardware based IP forwarding, whether their ancestry is from the L2 or the L3 side.
To me something that uses hardware assist, setup by the cpu per destination, is an L3 Switch. Something that does equal route lookups per packet all the time is a router.
So a 7500 with a fast cache is a L3 switch? :) The closest definition you'll get to an L3 switch is a box which does primarily or only Ethernet, can easily become an L2 ethernet switch again with different software, and uses software hacks on a normal ethernet CAM to do forwarding lookups. Other than that, it's just generalizations and stereotypes. Oh and of course, marketing. -- Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)
75xx/GSR, dCEF? 75xx/GSR are L3 switches then. ;) Not to add flame-bait, but.. http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios121/121cgcr/swit... Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 sthaug@nethelp.no wrote:
I don't understand how you can differentiate between a router and an L3 switch. In my view "L3 switch" is a marketing term. All high end boxes do hardware based IP forwarding, whether their ancestry is from the L2 or the L3 side.
To me something that uses hardware assist, setup by the cpu per destination, is an L3 Switch. Something that does equal route lookups per packet all the time is a router.
Not to mention that apparently if you turn off route-caching completely, you will make a router out of any "l3 switch" (since all packet forwarding will equally slow) -alex On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, Jason LeBlanc wrote:
75xx/GSR, dCEF? 75xx/GSR are L3 switches then. ;) Not to add flame-bait, but..
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios121/121cgcr/swit...
Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 sthaug@nethelp.no wrote:
I don't understand how you can differentiate between a router and an L3 switch. In my view "L3 switch" is a marketing term. All high end boxes do hardware based IP forwarding, whether their ancestry is from the L2 or the L3 side.
To me something that uses hardware assist, setup by the cpu per destination, is an L3 Switch. Something that does equal route lookups per packet all the time is a router.
participants (5)
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alex＠pilosoft.com -
Jason LeBlanc -
Mikael Abrahamsson -
Richard A Steenbergen -
sthaug＠nethelp.no