100 Managed Layer 3 Switch Installation Guide

ETWORK

LANNING

2-6

Using Layer 3 Routing

VLANs can significantly enhance network performance and security.

However, if you use conventional routers to interconnect VLANs, you can

lose most of your performance advantage. The TigerSwitch 10/100

provides wire-speed routing, which allows you to eliminate your

conventional IP routers, except for a router to handle non-IP protocols

and a gateway router linked to the WAN. Just assign an IP address to any

VLANs that need to communicate. The switch will continue to segregate

Layer 2 traffic based on VLANs, but will now provide inter-VLAN

connections for IP applications. This switch will perform IP routing for

specified VLAN groups, a directly connected subnetwork, a remote IP

subnetwork or host address, a subnetwork broadcast address, a switch IP

address on a specific IP subnetwork, or an IP multicast address.

Figure 2-5. IP Routing for Unicast Traffic

IP Network 1

R&D

VLAN 1

VLAN 2

Testing

IP Network 2