I just started a new gig and am trying to pick up our networking infrastructure as quickly as possible. We have 8 fiber runs located throughout the building in different parts. All the local devices connect to a switch there, that switch has an uplink over fiber with our:
Intel 550F switch, as far as I can tell this is a layer 3 switch but it might be layer 4?
Anyway the Intel 550F terminates all the fiber, then connects to 7 Intel 510T layer 2 switches with a proprietary cross connect cable. All the workstation drops connect via 100MB normal Cat5 cable to the Intel 510T switches.
We are looking to consolidate this and are pretty vendor specific for hardware. It's not difficult finding managed gigabit switches with 4 SFP fiber ports available but my question is, can we eliminate the 550F switch, terminate the fiber runs on a switch (say for example:http://www.netgear.com/business/products/switches/stackable-smart-switches/gs748ts.aspx), and connect normal cat 5 on the same switch, or is that routing and switching going to conflict?
So the current scenario is detailed above, the new scenario would be fiber connection on port 45, 46, 47, 48 from a different building, then workstations connected to the other 44 ports but all in the same switch. I guess the question if I'm interpreting things right is, can a layer 3 switch perform layer 2 switching and layer 3 routing in the same physical switch.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Answer
The question is a bit meandering and unclear, but to answer the one direct question I see:
I guess the question if I'm interpreting things right is, can a layer 3 switch perform layer 2 switching and layer 3 routing in the same physical switch.
Yes, a layer 3 switch also performs layer 2 switching. This is why it is called a layer 3 switch, and not just a router.
No comments:
Post a Comment