Which switch to use and play with

[coxhaus]

I agree about routers don’t necessarily mean NAT. In the old days most Cisco routers did not perform NAT. There was not enough memory to handle the firewall functions and if you wanted a firewall in a router there was a special version of the IOS. Cisco routers were used to handle 56K , T1, and DS3 communication lines. They also routed IP addresses, layer 3 traffic, and handled routing protocols. The Cisco PIC firewall was the main NAT device.

With these new hybrid L2 switches which handle static routes how are DHCP requests handle in the switch? Can you assign different IP networks to the different VLANS? Is there a way to forward the DHCP request from clients on different VLANs to a multi network DHCP server?

 

[Cloud200]

With these new hybrid L2 switches which handle static routes how are DHCP requests handle in the switch? Can you assign different IP networks to the different VLANS? Is there a way to forward the DHCP request from clients on different VLANs to a multi network DHCP server?

The way you forward L2 DHCP Broadcasts from one VLAN to another is via DHCP relay.
It is very simple to do in most switches. usually a 1 liner in command line or a few steps in GUI.
eg. for the HP 1910 also known as the 3com 2900:
http://www.techieshelp.com/how-to-create-a-vlan-on-a-hp-v1910/

Back to the OP. If you want a really REALLY good and cheap switch with both a GUI and command line to play with, check out a used 3com on ebay or a site like serversupply. The only issue with them is that they don't run Cisco IOS. For learning networking, it is hard to go far without ever touching Cisco's IOS in one way or another.

 

[garyzhang001]

I am using huawei switch since 2012 and until now it is still running well. Some switches are not so expensive.

 

[Cloud200]

I am using huawei switch since 2012 and until now it is still running well. Some switches are not so expensive.

OK, but are there any models available in the US that support the requirements and yet within the same budget range as TP-Link and Zyxel?