Are there any disadvantages these days to using a layer 3 switch instead of a dedicated router as your gateway?
We used to have a traditional setup with a cisco router as our edge device, but since switched to an SDWAN setup. They want us to use our (pretty old) HP 5130's (JG937A's) stacked L3 switches as our new gateway device, forwarding traffic over to the SDWAN routers they provided.
We are an enterprise with about 200 end stations, and 2 buildings on our campus. All of this traffic between the two buildings would be going out this one interface on the 5130.
Anybody see an actual problem with this? Looking at CPU utilization on the 5130's themselves, they're around 50%.
Is there anything wrong with this? I would think an actual enterprise grade router would be the best option, but does it actually matter?
In theory, a router and a layer 3 switch do the same thing. So in many cases, they are interchangeable (assuming you have the right interfaces). But there are a couple of things that may make a difference:
Router software may have more features than switch software. For example, many switches can't run BGP (or only a limited version). They may not have the memory to hold a full Internet routing table. Network Address Translation (NAT) is non-existent or limited on switches. QoS may also be limited.
Routers tend to have larger packet buffers than switches. This may be important if there is a big difference between LAN and WAN speeds. Routers can do a better job in this case.
Ultimately, it comes down to features, price, and performance. Your particular situation will determine which to use