What are the differences between a managed Switch and a Router

 

What are the differences between a managed switch and a router?

Managed switch is a layer 2 device that you can configure; give it an IP address, make certain ports one VLAN and other ports another, but it is still just layer 2, no routing capability. You would need a layer 3 switch to do routing. Although there can be several different subnets running on a physical network segment, managed switches can be configured to designate that certain ports on the switch relate to specific subnets so that each subnet appears to be using a separate switch.

Switches connect devices to a network. Routers connect networks to each other. Often they are in a same device. When you work on your local area network you use the switch. When you go to Internet, you use the router. Switches operate at the data link layer that is they use MAC Addresses. Routers operate at Network level i.e. use IP addresses.

1. The primary difference between any switch and a router is that a switch is limited to working on one (or possibly several) subnet(s) but does not provide a gateway between subnets. A router adds the gateway function to allow devices on one subnet to access devices on a different subnet.

2. A switch simply relays packets without modification so that they can reach another device on the same subnet. The switch may learn which ports devices are connected to and send packets only through those specific ports allowing other ports to be carrying other traffic at the same time. (A hub does not have this learning function, and all packets are sent to all devices. This prevents simultaneous transfers between different pairs of devices connected to the hub.)

3. For a router, client devices work out whether the connection is to a device on the same subnet or a different one. For the same subnet, a device simply sends packets directly to the target device. For a different subnet, a device sends packets to the router to be passed onto the different subnets.

4. Some Networking devices are known as Multi-layer switches because they work on Layer 2 i.e. Data link layer/Layer 3 i.e. Network Layer of OSI model and Routers also work on the 3rd layer of OSI model.

5. Layer 3 switches obviously does all the functions of layer 2 switches and of layer 3 as well but they are not Routers they are switches with not all but some Routing Functions.

6. Layer 3 switch do forwarding based on Hardware whereas Routers do forwarding based on Software.

7. Layer 3 switches have Limited QOS (Quality of Service) while Routers have full functionality of QOS.

8. Routers have WAN (Wide Area Network) connections on the other hand Layer 3 switches don’t.

9. Routers have NAT (Network Address Translator) whereas Layer 3 switches Don’t.

10. Layer 3 switches are ‘switches’ but when you type “iprouting” command, you add some, not all but some Routing Functions of Router.