Do you require a router if you are using a Layer 3 switch?

Question

If a layer 3 switch is a combination of a router and a switch do you still require a router to connect to the internet/

Answer 1

you dont but it is good business practice to have a seperate router to the internet. allows for redundancy too.

Answer 2

you elect a router. Routers are switches with routing tables that tell then what to alter whilst and the place. the only reason you will possibly choose a change is that in case you have already got a router and merely want greater actual ports to plug in to it. then you certainly might daisy-chain the router to a change, yet once you have neither, you want the router first. in case you're going under pressure, any 10/one hundred/one thousand is as solid as yet another. in case you want WiFi, you're dropping your earnings case you don;t purchase N-sort structures (till you merely ensue to locate an previous WRT-54G). As for the call for on the community out of your instruments. If the two computers the place downloading HD streaming video, and the two Xboxs have been combating furiously on stay, your cyber web connection might get slowed down slightly, yet despite router you get would be whistling a satisfied track the entire time. those issues can handle 250 switched instruments out of the container, and 65000 with some little tweaks. Your LAN site visitors can no longer overburden the router.

Answer 3

Short Answer: NO

Slightly Longer Answer: No but typically a dedicated router will have more features and configuration options for security then a layer 3 does.

It kind of depends on the level of security and features you need.

Many people don't know the difference between the two,
I prefer to go with dedicated routers, so that I can easily isolate problems and to simplify naming conventions.
Also, with my internal staff, we don't get confused as much if we starting calling a switch a router or vice versa.

Answer 4

A layer 3 switch is essentialy a router.

If it allows multiple configurable V-lans you doubly don't need a router.

The only reason you might is if you have point to point addresses you don't wan't to pass beyond the subnet of the switch as in a remote site you only want to access one server on the domain.

Answer 5

For a simple inet connection and a few other routing features, no. If you want more advance routing features, I would say purchase a commercial router as well.

Segmenting your network and VLans are pretty simple but you may want both so you don't tax one or the other and create a single point of failure.

Answer 6

No.