Switching
The term "switching" is used to refer to various mechanisms that take place on both switches and routers. In its most basic form, switching simply refers to the process by which a device decides out of which interface to send a frame or packet. Switching can take place on Layer 2 or Layer 3.
Another similar term that is often used is forwarding.
Layer 3 switching can also be referred to as Routing, but in some contexts the term switching is used. One must observe the context in which these terms are used to determine their meaning.
Layer 2 switching can take place using several mechanisms including:
Layer 3 switching can take place using several mechanisms including:
- Process switching
- Fast Switching
- Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF), also called topology based switching
Links to this page:
- home
- Configuration Register
- Ethernet - speed and duplex mismatches
- Hardware - Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)
- IOS - ip http server
- LAG - Multi-Chassis LAG
- MAC address table
- MetroEthernet - VLAN design considerations
- Network - control plane
- Network - data plane
- Network Time Protocol (NTP)
- QoS - CBWFQ
- SD-WAN - EVE-NG connection options
- STP - Per VLAN Spanning Tree plus (PVST+)
- Security - broadcast-multicast storm
- Security - storm control algorithm
- Switching - CEF
- Switching - Process switching
- Switching - backplane
- Switching - cut through
- Switching - fast switching
- Switching - store and forward
- Switching - switch fabric
- Switchport trunk encapsulation
- Troubleshooting high CPU and memory usage on a switch
- Unknown unicast traffic
- VLAN Access Lists
- VRRP - using the same ID on different interfaces