User`s manual

network, so a router would be attached to one of the Switch’s ports and the router is set as the Switch’s default
gateway.
The Layer 2 switch propagates all packets to be routed to the router. The router compares the IP destination
address in each packet it receives to the information in its routing table, then either drops the packet or forwards
it to another router or network segment.
Dedicated routers are expensive, complex and slow.
They can create serious network bottlenecks because they must analyze all broadcast packets, forwarding
some, while maintaining up to date routing tables by communicating with other routers.
Traditionally, this processing is handled by the CPU and can be extremely time-consuming.
This Switch does the work of both of these devices, switching packets locally using Layer 2 information, building
and maintaining routing tables and routing packets like a traditional router, but at wire speed. The Switch
achieves wire-speed routing because IP address information is cached in hardware. The Switch does not have to
rely on its CPU for processing.
Enabling routing
Routing on this Switch is not only much faster, it is much easier to configure than on a traditional router. The
network manager configures routing interfaces by creating one or more port-based VLANs and by assigning an
IP address and subnet mask to the VLAN.
Dynamic routing protocols
These switches can also be configured to use standard routing protocols—RIP1, RIP2, OSPF—to calculate
paths through the network. They can be deployed on any network regardless of routing protocols already in use.
For more details, see:
Routing Information Protocol (RIP)●
Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)●
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