Online Sources of info on Switches and Routers?

[shadow]

I need alot of detailed and current information on switches and routers, especially anything comparing the two, making assertions that switched will replace routers in the future, that the to will eventually merge, and current trends in these areas as well.

thank you

(PS, when did I become golden? and y?)

 

[Xanathar]

This sounds like a school project, especaiily since the base idea is wrong from the start. Switches and routers are two different things and will never replace eachother. for them merging, they never will (cant) but are now being marketed as layer 3 switches. (a router capable of routing extremely fast)

 

[shadow]

yes it is a school project, I've heard some gabble about IPv6 allowing for the elimination of routers altogether, to be replaced by switches with routing functions, increased functionality so as to not need routers in layer 2 & 3 of the CISCO network model. So routers will only be used at the backbone level, at the regional/national/global ISPs.

I'm not saying they are going replace eachother, but the line will become blurred.......

 

[bhuie]

<< yes it is a school project, I've heard some gabble about IPv6 allowing for the elimination of routers altogether, to be replaced by switches with routing functions, increased functionality so as to not need routers in layer 2 &amp; 3 of the CISCO network model. So routers will only be used at the backbone level, at the regional/national/global ISPs. >>



http://compnetworking.about.com/compute/compnetworking/ has some basic networking resources, but I'm not sure if they discuss your specific question.

Just to correct some of what you said:

The purpose of IPv6 isn't to eliminate routers, but to give a larger address space (128 bit addresses versus 32 bit). The basic difference between a router and a switch is that a router works at layer 3 and a switch at layer 2. There is blurring between the lines of switching and routing, but that's mostly in marketing terms. The end result is either faster routers or switches that are aware of layer-3. What terms like &quot;layer-3 switching&quot; are being used to describe is the growing use of hardware lookup tables to forward layer-3 packets. Switches use a large hardware cache to store the address/destination port. Until recently, routers couldn't do the same thing because they need to rewrite the layer-2 part of the packet based on a lookup from their routing and arp tables. That previously needed to be done in software, making it slow. Now, there are techniques that allow that to be done in hardware (or very low-level software). Devices that perform routing operations will always be necessary in the same places they are now, as long as we are still using IP, so they aren't going away anytime soon. What the marketing people decide to name them is a different matter.

Also, it's the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) network model, not the CISCO model.

 

[shadow]

I meant the CISCO layer, the cisco model has 3 layers and is a topology model, not a networking model, the DOD model has 5, TCP/IP has 5, OSI has seven.

I said &quot;allow for the elimination of routers&quot; not that that is it's prupse. There are some functions of IPv6 which will allow network engineers to use less routers in their networks, or so I've read/been told.

thx for the info bhuie

 

[pcmark]

The Cisco Model: 1)core layer 2)distribution layer 3) application layer
It's really only a way to view and organize an internetwork.

 

[bhuie]

Oops. I completely misunderstood your question. Anytime I hear &quot;layer 2&quot; or &quot;layer 3&quot;, I automatically think OSI. Here's something a little closer to what you're looking for:

http://wwwij.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/so/neso/lnso/cpso/netsr_wp.htm
http://www.combinet.com/warp/public/cc/so/cuso/epso/entdes/highd_wp.htm

There's probably a lot of other good resources on Cisco's site if you dig around. I'm not sure how much of it is publicly accessible though.