We all know that a switch is a network device used to forward electrical (optical) signals, while a router is a hardware device that connects two or more networks. It acts as a gateway between networks and reads the data in each packet. The address then determines how to transmit the dedicated intelligent network device. Next, ETU-LINK will give you a detailed introduction to the differences between them.

First of all, their working scenarios are different. Routers are used in the network layer, while switches are used in the link layer. The main work of the two is to forward data, but the difference is that they rely on different addresses. Routers rely on IP addresses to forward datagrams to the next station, while switches rely on MAC addresses. They search in their own tables according to the MAC addresses in the header information of the received data frames. If they have, they forward them, if not, they give up.

In addition, the switch is used for data forwarding in LAN, while the router is used to connect LAN and extranet. The function of switch is integrated in the router, and data forwarding can be realized when the host is connected with the router, but the disadvantage is that there are not as many scalable interfaces as switches.

Although they are different in internal structure, the optical interconnection products used are almost the same. Routers and switches need to use optical modules and fiber patch cord to realize the interconnection between network devices. Usually, Gigabit switch can be matched with gigabit optical module and 10 Gigabit optical module. According to the distance between network devices, we need to select the optical module corresponding to the transmission distance. For example, if the distance between devices is 300m, we can use Gigabit multimode optical module (ES8512-3LCD05) or 10 Gigabit multimode 300m optical module (ES85X-3LCD03) with multimode patch cord to realize the interconnection between network devices. (More detailed optical module scheme can be seen in the figure below)

The above are some of the differences between routers and switches introduced by ETU-LINK. Routers and switches are common network devices. The interconnection between network devices requires optical modules, fiber jumpers and other related products to be used in conjunction with them. For more information, welcome to visit our website.