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Differences between a Layer 3switch and a router

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QUESTION POSED ON: 06 August 2002
What are the differences between a Layer 3switch and a router?

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Mostly marketing. The term "layer 3 switch" was invented by marketing people to describe their routers, which circa 1996 or so, were much faster than traditional routers like the Cisco 7000. There's no real consensus on what the difference is between a layer 3 switch and a router, but generally a layer 3 switch will handle packet forwarding in hardware (ASICs), and often can perform both layer 3 routing as well as layer 2 switching functions.
(Answered by Brandon Ross, VP of Operations, Sockeye Networks.)

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