I am new to networking, and I have a very fundamental question about router, switch and hub. I Know the router can perform the switch and hub's functions from my networking class. I am always wondering why we still need the switch and hubs in our network design? Why not replace all switch and hub to router then we don't need to care about the broadcast domain and collision domain and many many other stuff? Just one question, Thanks.
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2Hi Samuel. Questions on ServerFault should be about concrete problems that you're facing in your daily work as an IT Professional. There are other Q&A sites available in the StackExchange network that may be more appropriate for your more theoretically-focused question.– MagellanMay 27, 2013 at 16:16
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Primarily, because routers tend to be expensive, and more specialised (with regard to supported routing protocols, and memory, and cpu power, firewalling etc).
There are some switches which operate at Layer 3 too, and can perform routing to some degree, but it's usually a trade-off for routing performance vs number of ports. You can build router-only networks, as well as switch-only networks, but as with each, they're of limited use, or specialist implementations only.
Hubs are a bit rare now, but can be very useful if you don't have SPAN/Mirror functionality on your switch.
answered May 27, 2013 at 16:25
