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I noticed there are some switches called "Layer-3 Switch", which is able to do both switching and routing.

I have seen some articles that says Layer-3 switch can replace routers. Is it going to replace both routers and managed switches in future? Or are there still some routing functions that Layer-3 switch cannot achieve?

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Layer-3 switches can do layer-3 routing along with layer-2 switching.

Whether or not a layer-3 switch can replace a router depends on the switch model and what you need it to do. Some layer-3 switches are very complete router replacements, with a full range of WAN, firewall, VoIP, etc. modules. On the other hand, those switches are expensive, and most layer-3 switches only have ethernet ports. There can be things that dedicated routers do better than most layer-3 switches.

YLearn has a good explanation in an answer for this question.

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Ron Maupin
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