What is the functions of the distribution layer?

As the title reads, what is the purpose of the distribution layer? Is it basically bundling the cables or do we do any routing/switching here?

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dtlokee

Many times the distribution layer is doing inter-vlan routing for the access switches with a L3 connection to the core. It really can depend on the design.

hypnotoad

The distribution layer does firewalling so the core layer doesn't have to -- the core layer shouldn't have to process ACLs or do packet inspection as they will slow it down. I've also heard of QoS programming going on in the distribution layer.

Morty3

Thanks guys! I also read in the book "Network fundamentals" from cisco press, a really new book that my teacher ordered for me and a few guys since we care a lot more then the other guys in class, and I understood the functions a lot better. I got an assignment for class where I'm supposed to create a full network with 300 hosts and an wireless network aswell.

Probably gonna start more threads about this assignment, really wanna do great!

Can take a new question here that came into my head yesterday;

I though of creating 8 different VLANs, to make it easy for management and reducing broadcasts to the minimum. Anyhow, I was wondering how I fix the DHCP for this? I thought of using 192.168.0.0/24 through 192.168.8.0/24, since there is 255 private networks to pick from I cant see why to subnet ^^
Will each subnet need a own DHCP server? How can I make this work?

meadIT

Morty3 wrote: »

I though of creating 8 different VLANs, to make it easy for management and reducing broadcasts to the minimum. Anyhow, I was wondering how I fix the DHCP for this? I thought of using 192.168.0.0/24 through 192.168.8.0/24, since there is 255 private networks to pick from I cant see why to subnet ^^
Will each subnet need a own DHCP server? How can I make this work?

It's possible to use 1 DHCP server, but you'll either need RFC-1542 compliant routers to act as a relay agent, or set up a relay agent on each subnet. The relay agent will see that a host is asking for an IP address and forward the request to the DHCP server.