From two layer to seven Layer switch technology application environment introduction

The network technology develops rapidly, the Ethernet occupies the dominant position. In order to meet the challenge of deepening the network application, the scale and speed of the network are developing rapidly, the speed of LAN has been improved from the initial 10mbit/s to the 100mbit/s, and the Gigabit Ethernet technology has been widely used.

For users, in the premise of reducing costs, to ensure the high reliability of the network, high-performance, easy to maintain, easy to expand, and the use of what kind of networking technology is closely related; for equipment manufacturers, in ensuring the realization of user network functions on the basis of how to achieve a more substantial profit, using networking technology, Become a means of raising profits.

In the specific networking process, is the use of the traditional 2nd-tier exchange technology has become increasingly sophisticated, or the use of a routing function of the 3rd layer switching technology, or the use of high Network service level of the 7th layer of exchange technology?

In the trade-offs of these technology choices, what are the 2-tier, 3-tier, and 7-tier switching technologies, and what are their respective environments?

The traditional layer 2nd Exchange technology

The 2-layer switching technology can identify the MAC address information in the data frame, forward according to the MAC address, and record the MAC address with the corresponding port in a MAC address table within oneself.

When it comes to exchange, in the broadest sense, any data forwarding can be called an exchange. However, the traditional, narrow layer of the 2nd Exchange technology, only includes data link layer forwarding.

At present, the 2nd layer Exchange technology has matured. From a hardware perspective, the interface modules for layer 2nd switches are exchanged through high speed Backplane/bus (up to dozens of Gbps), and 2-tier switches typically contain ASIC (application specific integrated) specifically designed to handle packet forwarding circuit ) chip, so the forwarding speed can be done very quickly.

2-layer switch is mainly used in small LAN, the number of machines in 20 or 30 below, such a network environment, broadcast packet impact is not small, 2-layer switch fast switching function, multiple access ports and low price, for small network users with a comprehensive solution.

In a word, the switched LAN technology makes the dedicated bandwidth unique to the users, and greatly improves the efficiency of the LAN transmission. It can be said that in the network system integration technology, the direct user-oriented layer 2nd Exchange technology, has been a satisfactory answer.

Layer 3rd switching technology with routing function

The 3rd layer switching technology is a kind of exchange technology which began to appear before and after 1997, and was originally designed to solve the problem of broadcast domain. After years of development, layer 3rd Exchange technology has become the main force to build a multi-service fusion network.

In large scale LAN, in order to reduce the harm of broadcast storm, large LAN must be divided into several small LAN by function or region, which will lead to a great deal of mutual visits between different subnets, but only using layer 2nd Exchange technology, can not realize the mutual exchange between subnets.

To solve this problem technically, network vendors have developed a Layer 3 switch, also known as a routing switch, using layer 3rd switching technology, which is an intelligent combination of traditional switches and routers.

Simply put, the exchange technology that can handle the 3rd layer of data forwarding is the 3rd layer Exchange technology.

From the hardware, in layer 3rd switch, the router-related layer 3rd Routing hardware module is also plugged into the high speed backplane/bus. In this way, the routing module can exchange data with other modules that need to be routed, thus breaking the traditional interface speed limit of external routers.

The 3-tier switch is designed for IP, has a simple interface type, has a strong 3-layer packet processing capability, and is much lower priced than routers of the same rate, and is ideal for large-scale local area networks.

Layer 3rd Switching technology has been quite mature today, and 3-tier switches have never stopped developing. The 3rd Layer Exchange technology and the development of 3-layer Exchange equipment will promote the information transformation of the whole society at a deeper level, and get more and more important status in the whole network.

The 7th Layer Exchange technology with Network SERVICE function

Layer 7th Exchange technology is used to unlock each layer of each package and identify the application layer information to realize the content recognition.

Making full use of the bandwidth resources and managing the application and content on the Internet is becoming the focus of service providers. How to solve the problem of the transport layer to the application layer, the network technology specially for the transport layer to the application layer has become very important, which is the most fundamental reason for the development of the 7th Layer Exchange technology at present.

Simply put, the exchange technology that can handle the data forwarding of the network application layer is the 7th Layer Exchange technology. The main purpose is that in the case of bandwidth application, the network layer is no longer the key to the problem, instead of improving the level of network services to complete the transformation of the Internet to intelligence.

The 7th Layer switching technology realizes all the functions of the high level network through the application layer switch, so that the network manager can allocate the network resources better with lower cost.

From a hardware perspective, the 7-tier switch focuses all functionality on a dedicated special application integrated circuit or ASIC. The ASIC is less expensive than traditional routers and is typically distributed over network ports, and includes 50 ASIC in a single device that can support hundreds of interfaces. The new ASIC allows the intelligent switch/router to forward data at an extremely fast speed on all ports, and the 7th Layer switching technology can effectively achieve data flow optimization and intelligent load balancing.

In the Internet, intranet and extranet networks, the 7-tier switch has great ambitions. For example, business to consumer E-commerce, online customer support, personnel planning and construction, market sales automation, customer service, firewall load balancing, content filtering and bandwidth management.

Exchange technology is moving in the direction of intelligence, from the initial layer 2nd Exchange to the 3rd layer Exchange, has now evolved to the network of the 7th layer of application layer exchange. The basic aim is to ensure the high reliability, high performance, easy maintenance and easy expansion of the network, and finally reach the intelligent management of the network under the premise of reducing the cost.