On 19 Mar 00, at 13:10, Bob Wright wrote:

> At 08:54 AM 03/17/2000 , you wrote:
> > > A switch acts like a cross point switch, being smart enough
> > > to recognize which
> > > packets are targeted to which computers connected to it. It
> > > does this by
> > > learning the ethernet address of each connected system, and
> > > decoding the
> > > ethernet address of the destination of each packet. It routes
> > > that packet ONLY
> >
> >Okay, so what's the difference between a switch and a router?
> >
> >Philo
>
> In basic terms a switch is a cheaper device than a router.   Both
> determine were and how data should be sent to either adjacent
> devices or networks. Switches may contain routers and vice-versa.
> However, in strict terms a switch is a faster and simpler device
> than a router.  A router creates or maintains a table of the
> available routes and their conditions and uses this information
> along with distance and cost algorithms to determine the best route
> for a given packet.  A switch does not do this, accessing this
> information from a router.
>
> Please remember that both are more complicated than this and I am
> only attempting to draw a distinct difference for this discussion.
>
>      Bob Wright
> The NOSPIN Group

  Although some high-end devices are blurring this distinction,
traditionally a switch distributes packets based on their layer 2
addressing (MAC addresses, in Ethernet) and a router rewrites layer 2
addressing based on layer 3 information (IP addresses, in TCP/IP).
Routers are found wherever subnets meet; 2-port routers are quite
common.  Switches normally operate within a single subnet (VLANs
allow a single switch to be split across multiple subnets), but are
often deployed with a port for every device on the subnet.

David G

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