Cisco network engineer Note: Switch Classification

Switch Classification 1: According to the LAN standard supported by the switch

① Ethernet switches are the most popular

② FDDI switch Optical Fiber Distributed Data Interface)

③ Asynchronous transmission mode of an ATM Switch)

④ Wildcard ring switch

The same vswitch may provide various types of ports that support different speeds and different media standards.

Vswitch Category 2: By vswitch architecture category

Based on the switch architecture, there is a single switch, a stack switch, and a modular switch.

1) A single vswitch

A single switch works independently and cannot be used separately.

2) stacked Switch

A stack switch uses a stack cable to connect multiple stack switches to form a whole through a dedicated stack port on each switch.

3) Modular Switch

Each cabinet modular switch has a chassis with multiple expansion slots. In the expansion slot, you can insert swap modules for various LAN standards and various media interfaces.

The Cabinet modular switch has the best performance, the best flexibility, and good security and scalability.

Switch classification 3: By switch operation in the OSI reference model hierarchy Classification

According to the hierarchical classification of switches working in the OSI reference model, switches can be divided into Layer 2 switches working on the data link layerL3 SwitchAnd layer-4 switches and multi-layer switches that work on the transport layer.

1) Layer 2 Switch

Layer 2 switches work on the Layer 2 of the OSI reference model, that is, the data link layer. It performs line rate Switching Based on the destination MAC address in the data frame. It can only exchange data frames based on the MAC address.

The L2 Switch does not have the routing function. However, with the virtual network function, you can divide VLANs. However, different VLAN members cannot communicate directly and can only be achieved through routers.

2) layer-3 Switch

A layer-3 switch is a device that works at the network layer. It integrates L2 switching and routing technologies. A layer-3 switch is a layer-2 switch with the routing function.

The layer-3 Switch selects the path and performs Fast Packet Exchange Based on the destination IP address in the packet. It can implement communication between different logical subnets and different VLANs.

In the layer-3 switch, a layer-3 Switch module is added to complete the path selection function. The data exchange of layer-3 switches is still completed by the layer-2 switch module.

The layer-3 Switch adopts the "one route, multiple switches" technology, and its switching function mainly relies on hardware implementation. Therefore, the data forwarding speed of the layer-3 switch is faster than that of the traditional router.

Layer-3 switches are designed for IP addresses. layer-3 switches support less routing protocols than routers. They mainly support internal gateway protocol RIP and OSPF ).