Stupid question about managed switches

[Marc G. Fournier]

Please excuse this, but my experience with them is zilch ... am going with
the HP Procurve 2826(?) Layer2/Layer3 switch, as was suggested, but I'm
curious as to how they work ...

For instance, I know when I setup a router, I have an IN IP and an OUT IP
configured ... but, with a managed switch, what do I have?

For instance, right now, I have a default gateway on the providers switch
of 200.46.204.1 ... and my servers are .2, .3, .4 and .5 ... if I put a
managed switch, vs the unmanaged we have now, between the providers switch
and the servers, does my default route then change to be the switch
itself?  Or is the 'login part' of the switch thought of the same way as
adding just another server to the network, for connectivity purposes?

As I said, stupid question, but for someone whose never played with a
managed switch before ... :(

Thanks ..

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy at hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664