Asymmetric switches are still commonly used. So I studied the common application scenarios of asymmetric switches and shared them here. I hope they will be useful to you. Asymmetric switches are the first choice for enterprises that have funds and are unable to purchase high-end switches to improve network performance. If it is well utilized, it can greatly improve the network performance, and enterprises do not have to pay a high cost for it. It can be said that it is a cheap and cost-effective solution.
In general, asymmetric switches are mainly used in the following places.
1. Network Used in server/client mode. If your enterprise deploys application servers, such as ERP servers and file servers, these servers tend to have high concurrent access. That is to say, multiple users may access these servers at the same time. In this case, we can deploy an asymmetric switch on the server, connect the port with a high speed to the server, and then connect other ports to the client. In this case, the port speed of the server-side switch will not become a bottleneck resource for access, or it will effectively reduce the number of concurrent connections on the server side and affect server access.
Second, the connection between user switches. How can an enterprise handle more than one vswitch and multiple vswitches during network deployment? Communication between vswitches is also required. However, if a symmetric switch is used, the bandwidth is limited. In fact, the communication between vswitches is like A river. The customer terminals connected to vswitches are like A stream. If all clients on vswitch A need to access clients on vswitch B, then these streams converge into a river. In this case, if a symmetric switch port is used, the port connected to the switch will become a bottleneck resource, thus affecting network performance. On the contrary, if an asymmetric switch is used at this time and a port with a high speed is used for the connection between switches, the network access performance will be improved, this bottleneck does not exist or effectively reduces its impact on network performance.
Third, it is used to connect a vswitch to a vro. Currently, many enterprise networks are deployed on routers, switches, small switches, or hubs. The dial-up function of the vro is used to directly connect to the Internet. Then, the vswitch is used to connect to the vro to share the Internet with each other. In this case, a problem occurs. The vswitch port connected to the vro may cause a traffic bottleneck. After all, data packets sent from other ports of the vswitch to access the external network must communicate with the vro through this port. At this time, it is not appropriate to use a high-end symmetric switch. On the one hand, the price is relatively expensive. On the other hand, the bandwidth of only one port may be fully utilized. For other ports, the 10 Mbit/S bandwidth is enough, which is also a waste. Therefore, we can use asymmetric switches for connection. Connecting a high-speed port to a router can effectively solve the traffic bottleneck problem of the port connected to the router, thus improving the network performance.
Although asymmetric switches may work in more complex ways than symmetric switches, they are transparent to users. In other words, our network administrator can enjoy the role of asymmetric switches for enterprise network construction without additional management work. Therefore, I believe that asymmetric switches are the preferred switch equipment in our enterprise network construction. I believe that, with the help of asymmetric switches, enterprises can save a lot of money compared with symmetric switches. In terms of network performance, symmetric switches are used to achieve the same effect. The most important thing is that our Network Administrator does not have to put extra effort into it.