L3 at the core means?

[dogsbod]

Hi,
I'm trying to get my head around implementing L3 routing, my question is, do all the switches in the network need to be L3 capable if you intend to use MLS or CEF or does only the core need be L3 capable and access switches L2. Can someone shed some light on this for me please.Thanks.

 

[RookThis]

A network design of:

access<==L2==>distribution<==L3==>core

Distribution layer handling all of the traffic, acls, etc... and the core just routing

http://www.mcmcse.com/cisco/guides/hierarchical_model.shtml