Learn how to select a 24-port Gigabit Switch

The most widely used switch for small and medium-sized enterprises is the 24-port Gigabit Switch. Therefore, when purchasing a switch, you must make full consideration. A clear purpose is to save costs for everyone. In network equipment, switches may be the most familiar devices of network administrators, especially access layer switches.

However, when purchasing vswitches, network administrators may be confused about the technical parameters that many brands seem to have identical. So what are the nuances of the 24-port Gigabit Switch? The following describes the most common 24-port Gigabit Switch.

The first is whether PoE power supply is supported. This technical indicator is often ignored by most people. Because the access layer switch directly connects to the terminal, the biggest benefit of the PoE Power Supply switch is that it can easily access other devices. In today's enterprise LAN, terminal devices are no longer limited to computers, Wireless AP, IP Phone, IP camera, etc., and will all be connected to switches.

These devices are often installed in areas that are inconvenient to access power, such as walls and ceilings. If the 24-port Gigabit Switch does not support the PoE power supply function, the network administrator can only change the switch. Therefore, when purchasing a switch, simply consider purchasing a PoE-powered switch, saving time and effort.

In terms of PoE power supply, another indicator worth attention is the power provided by each port. In general, the PoE function adopts the 802. 3af standard, which sets 3.84 ~ 12.95W: five levels of Electric Power requests, up to 13 W. However, because the power required by different AP, IP phone, or camera is different, the larger the PoE power provided by each port, the better.

The second is the number of VLANs and the number of ports aggregated. Different VLANs are divided for each working group, which is the most familiar operation for network administrators. It is also a 24-port Gigabit Switch, but there are many differences in the number of VLANs supported. Some support 64, and some support up to 256. Obviously, the larger the number, the better. You can divide more VLANs.

The third thing to note is the number of MAC address tables. The number of MAC addresses refers to the maximum number of MAC addresses that can be stored in the MAC address table of the switch. The more MAC addresses that are stored, the higher the speed and efficiency of data forwarding. However, each port of a vswitch of different grades can support different MAC numbers.

Each port of the vswitch requires sufficient cache to remember these MAC addresses. Therefore, the Buffer capacity determines the number of MAC addresses that the corresponding switch can remember. Generally, a 24-port Gigabit Switch only needs to remember 1024 MAC addresses, while a general switch can do this.

However, if you consider the expansion of Enterprise Networks in the future, you should select a larger number for the MAC address table, so that you can have more options during the expansion without frequent switch replacement, this greatly reduces the total cost of ownership of vswitches.

The fourth value is the backboard bandwidth. The larger the value, the better. Because the larger the backboard bandwidth, the higher the forwarding capability of the 24-port Gigabit Switch. However, the bandwidth is generally related to the number of ports and the speed, the formula is as follows: number of ports * corresponding port rate * 2 (full duplex mode). If the total bandwidth is less than or equal to the nominal backboard bandwidth, the bandwidth is linear.

Obviously, when selecting a 24-port Gigabit Switch, you only need to consider the number of its Mbit/s and Gbit/s ports to calculate the bandwidth value of the backboard. Therefore, when selecting a 24-port gigabit switch, it makes little sense if only the number of the backboard bandwidth is large. As long as the port speed meets your own requirements and the working mode can support full duplex.

The fifth thing to note is the QoS function. In the current LAN, it is not only data, but also IP voice and video transmission. In addition, some employees often use the company's network to download some movies, play SNS games and other non-work content, which will occupy the bandwidth of the LAN, thus affecting others' work.

Although network administrators can purchase professional devices such as internet behavior management and traffic management to manage the behaviors of these users, for small enterprises with limited budgets, the procurement of these devices may not necessarily be approved by the enterprise management. In this case, selecting a switch with QoS can solve the urgent needs of network administrators to some extent.

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