What is the difference between a Layer 3 switch and an ordinary switch?

The main differences between Layer 3 switches and ordinary switches are:

1, high scalability

Layer 3 switches are connected to multiple subnets, the subnets are only logically connected to the Layer 3 switching module, while ordinary switches need to increase the number of ports.

2, cost-effective

Layer 3 switches have the ability to connect large networks, the function can basically replace some traditional routers, but the price is close to ordinary switches. The price of a 100 megabit Layer 3 switch is only a few tens of thousands of dollars, which is about the same as the price of a high-end ordinary switch.

3, built-in security mechanisms

Layer 3 switches can be the same as ordinary routers, with the function of access lists, you can realize one-way or two-way communication between different VLANs. Take the RG-S5750-E/P series switches of Ruijie as an example, it has a variety of intrinsic mechanisms that can effectively prevent and control virus propagation and hacker attacks, such as preventing DoS attacks, anti-hacker IP scanning mechanism, legitimacy checking of port ARP messages, and a variety of hardware ACL policies, etc., which are not available in general switches.

4. Billing function

Three-layer switch can recognize the IP address information in the packet, so it can count the data traffic of the computers in the network, and bill by the traffic, and also count the time of the computers connected to the network, and bill by the time. And ordinary switches will be difficult to do both at the same time.