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Network Dictionary – Layer 3 Routing

1st December 2009 By 5 Comments

If you say Layer 3 Routing, you look silly. Routing refers to the forwarding of packets from one network to another. Packets are Layer 3. If you are forwarding frames then that is known as switching.

When you say Layer 3 routing, you are actually saying “packet routing packets”. And that is a tautology.

So stop it. Just say routing, or Layer 3 forwarding.

I feel better now. Rant over.

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About Greg Ferro

Greg Ferro is a Network Engineer/Architect, mostly focussed on Data Centre, Security Infrastructure, and recently Virtualization. He has over 20 years in IT, in wide range of employers working as a freelance consultant including Finance, Service Providers and Online Companies. He is CCIE#6920 and has a few ideas about the world, but not enough to really count.

He is a host on the Packet Pushers Podcast, blogger at EtherealMind.com and on Twitter @etherealmind and Google Plus

  • http://blog.angelcastaneda.com Angel Castaneda

    According to the Department of Redundancy Department, “Layer 3 routing” is perfectly fine.

  • Yandy

    lfmao!!! so true

  • http://cisco.markom.info Marko Milivojevic

    Actually, there could be other types of routing, especially in telco networks. It’s therefore rather important to use this terminology sometimes…

    • http://etherealmind.com Greg Ferro

      Marko

      Like what ? MPLS ? MPLS is switching not routing.

  • Marko Milivojevic

    Nothing like that. I was more thinking along the lines of “call routing”, SS7, PNNI routing in ATM, SDH trail rerouting, etc.

    There are important things in telco networks that are not IP. When working in an environment of mixed engineers, you need to ensure that everyone is talking the same language. I have on few occasions spent time troubleshooting “routing problems” that were not what we would call that.