| FAQ |
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| Networking : Technologies : ATM Switch & Router |
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| Question: | According to my friend an ATM switch is different from a normal switch & she also told that an ATM Switch is similar to an ordinary Router. Is it so? |
| Answer: | If for a second, we keep all the different underlying technologies(IP-packet,ATM-cell etc..) as well as marketing sweet talk of different companies aside, a router and a switch in essence exactly means as to what their name suggests, i.e, a router routes packets and a switch just switches those...as simple as that.
In other words, a router which generally operates at layer 3(network layer) uses different routing protocols, metrics and alogorithms to select the best route to divert the packets while the switch operates at layer 2(data link layer) and depending on the switch fabric just switches them to devices on the SAME subnet. A switch cannot be used to interconnect two different networks while it is possible with a router. Now more specifically, an ATM switch accepts a cell from another ATM switch or an end point, reads the ATM header and other information in the cell, looks up the local translation table and then retransmits that cell onto the outgoing link with new header info as defined in the lookup table. Hope that helps a lil bit.. |
| last updated 11.11.2003 | |
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