manageable switch

Managed Ethernet switches have more capability than unmanaged switches, but they also require a skilled administrator or engineer to make the most of them. A managed switch enables you to have better control of your network and all the data frames moving through it. Unmanaged switches, on the other hand, enable connected devices to communicate with one another in their most basic form.

Below, we compare the differences between managed and unmanaged switches.

Unmanaged Ethernet switches
Unmanaged switches use autonegotiated ports to determine parameters such as the data rate and whether to use half-duplex or full-duplex mode. Additionally, unmanaged switches have no concept of virtual LANs (VLANs). Thus, all devices belong to the same broadcast domain.

Unmanaged switches do maintain a media access control (MAC) address table, however. This table keeps track of dynamically learned MAC addresses and the corresponding switch port on which the MAC address was learned. The inclusion of a MAC address table means unmanaged switches do offer a separate, per-port collision domain. This is a key differentiator between an unmanaged Ethernet switch and an Ethernet hub.

Managed Ethernet switches
A major difference between managed and unmanaged switches is control. A managed switch lets you adjust each port on the switch to any setting you desire, enabling you to monitor and configure your network in many ways. It also provides greater control over how data travels over the network and who has access to it. Managed switches generally offer Simple Network Management Protocol, which enables you to monitor the status of the switch and individual switch ports and gives you statistics like traffic throughput, network errors and port status.

Features available on managed switches may vary among manufacturers and models, but they often include the following:
What is a layer 3 switch?
Simply put, a layer 3 switch combines the functionality of a switch and a router. It acts as a switch to connect devices that are on the same subnet or virtual LAN at lightning speeds and has IP routing intelligence built into it to double up as a router. It can support routing protocols, inspect incoming packets, and can even make routing decisions based on the source and destination addresses. This is how a layer 3 switch acts as both a switch and a router.
manageable switch

Often referred to as a multilayer switch, a layer 3 switch adds a ton of flexibility to a network.

Features of a layer 3 switch

Purpose of a layer 3 switch
There is a ton of confusion about the use of a layer 3 switch because in a traditional setup, routers operate at layer 3 of the OSI model while switches operate at layer 2. So, how does this layer 3 switch fit into this model? Also, the name “layer 3 switch” causes confusion because switches typically operate from layer 2.

Originally, layer 3 switches were conceived to improve routing performance on large networks, especially corporate intranets. To understand the purpose, let’s step back a bit in time to see how these switches evolved.