What is the difference between a switch and a router can a router be used as a switch?

Often see network friends in the difference between the switch and router, in fact, if you have used both switch and router friends should know, for everyone, switch and router use the biggest difference is that the router can realize dial-up internet access, and then shared to multiple computers at the same time the Internet, But the switch does not have the dial function, but the function of the switch is to shunt the network signal, in order to realize more computer Connection Sharing Internet.

Introduced here may be not very familiar with the switch, so to speak, we know that the router has 5 ports, one of which is a WAN port, connected to the broadband line, the other four ports are used to connect the Internet computer (wireless router transmission distance is how far), In other words, a router can support up to 4 computers to share the Internet, so we should realize more computer sharing. What about this broadband internet connection? So this time we need to use the switch, switch and router, the switch generally has at least 8 ports, we only need to the router in the 1-4 port of one of the ports to connect the network cable with the switch any port, the other port can connect many computers to achieve Internet access, So that a network cable through the router to connect with the switch can be far more than 4 people sharing the Internet, the role of the switch here is equivalent to increasing the network cable port, can be understood as a diversion, a variable n port.

The difference between a switch and a router

The above author is to be able to understand the difference between the switch and the router more simple to use the popular discourse introduced, below we look at the network, switch and router professional terminology introduction difference is how to define:

The difference between a switch and a router

Computer networks are often connected by a number of different types of network interconnection. If several computer networks are physically connected and not able to communicate between them, then this "interconnection" is of little practical significance. So often when it comes to "interconnection", it has been hinted that these interconnected computers can communicate, that is to say, from a functional and logical perspective, these computer networks have formed a large computer network, or the Internet, but also referred to as the Internet, interconnection network.

Connecting networks to each other to use some intermediate devices (or intermediate systems), the term ISO is called a trunking (relay) system. Depending on the hierarchy of the trunking system, there are five types of relay systems available:

⒈) The physical layer (that is, the first layer, layer L1) relay system, the transponder (repeater).
⒉) Data Link layer (second layer, layer L2), which is a bridge or bridge.
⒊) network layer (third layer, layer L3) relay system, i.e. router (router).
⒋) The mixture of bridges and routers (Brouter) is also the function of the bridge and the router.
⒌) A relay system above the network layer, i.e. gateway.

When a relay system is a forwarder, it is generally not called a network interconnection, because it is just a network expansion, and this is still a network. High-level gateways are more complex and are currently used less. Therefore, the general discussion of network interconnection refers to the network connected with switches and routers.

You can think of this, the switch can connect more than one computer, and the switch interconnection of the computer itself has the function of communicating with each other, formed into an internal LAN, but need to access the Internet also need to have network support, so the switch one end need to connect to the router, the router can realize the Exchange function, but also dial, Achieve broadband connectivity and allocate broadband resources to the use of switches, which enables multiple computers to share the Internet.

Generally speaking, the router has both the routing function, with network relay system, but also has the Exchange function, the router in addition to the WAN port, the other four ports equivalent to the switch port, the router for the connection between the Wan-wan, can solve the heterosexual network between the forwarding packet, for the network layer , while switches are generally used for lan-wan connections, the switches are attributed to the network Bridge, which is the device of the data link layer, and some switches can also achieve the third layer of exchange. Routers are more powerful than switches, but they are relatively expensive and faster than switches.

The above is only a few of the switches and routers we used to distinguish, for some of the more high-end enterprise-class products, especially the third layer of switches and routers more powerful than described above.

What is the difference between a switch and a router can a router be used as a switch?