Network Switches

By Stephen Bucaro

A bridge or router may be referred to as a "switch" because it uses information in the data packet to choose a path from one network segment to another. A bridge may be referred to as a "layer 2 switch" because it uses information from layer 2, the Data Link layer of the OSI model. A router may be referred to as a "layer 3 switch" because it uses information from layer 3, the Network layer of the OSI model. A network device that uses a higher layer of the OSI model may be referred to as a "layer 4 switch", and so on.