Currently we have Adtran 1638 switches which are layer 3. I'm about to replace one of them and wondering what the benefits are of having layer 3 switches.
Basically, I don't need any of the routing features in layer 3 other than the ability to create vlans.
I read another forum post that basically said if you don't know if you need a layer 3 switch then you probably don't.
However, aren't there other benefits to having layer 3 even if you just drop the switch in and don't configure anything?
From what I understand, a layer 3 switch would be more efficient in the way that it routes traffic based on IP address to specific ports. So Layer 3 will cut down on broadcast/multicast traffic. Am I wrong?