Comprehensive Tutorial of 10G Switch for Local Area Network

When we use a 10G switch on the local area network, workstations and personal computers on the LAN network can share files through the switch, and at the same time, they can access each other over a single Internet connection. Choosing a suitable 10G switch for your data center is crucial, there are many different models of switches, unmanaged vs managed Switch, non-PoE vs PoE Switch, do you know how to choose a suitable switch, this post will show you a comprehensive tutorial

What is a Local Area Network?

We can think of The Local Area Network (LAN) as a kind of computer network. Let's take a 10 gigabyte Ethernet for example. This network is composed of cables, 10GbE routers, and 10-gigabit switches. This link allows devices (typically workstations and personal computers) to connect to Web servers and internal servers in a single building, campus, or home network, they can also access other local area networks by WAN (wide area networks) or MAN (metropolitan area networks).

We can divide LAN networks into two different types, wired and wireless, and they have different transmission methods. A Wireless LAN network (WLAN) uses radio waves to transmit signals, in which users access the local area network through a wireless connection. The advantage of this transmission method is that when devices are connected to the network, this device can work around within the signal range. The wired local area network is to connect all the devices to the network switch through the Ethernet cable. When we are building a wired local area network system, we may be limited by the number of ports of the switch. You may be troubled when you need to access a lot of devices. 

We know that the devices in the local area network can share files with each other, compare the different advantages of these two communication methods, the wireless network allows you to have an unlimited number of access devices. The device can work within the radio signal range. In contrast, a wired LAN network creates more reliable communication between devices, moreover, it also can expand the number of available LAN ports on your network.

Figure 1: LAN Network Architecture

Why Did We Choose a 10G Switch for High-speed LAN Setup?

Today's Internet development requires data centers to have higher Internet speeds and more cloud service bandwidth, which requires servers in data centers to have higher capacity, and the demand for data processing capacity of data centers becomes larger. QSFPTEK launched 10G switches to meet customers' needs for 10G Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet will also become the backbone of LAN network in the future, which will bring convenience to our customers to reduce network pressure.

If you have visited the QSFPTEK website, you will find that there are many different kinds of switches with different performances, specifications, functions, here is the comprehensive tutorial of 10GB Ethernet switch for Local Area Network.

How to Choose a 10G Switch for LAN Network?

Port Number

Before you build a LAN network, you should determine the number of access devices in advance, which will be related to the number of ports required by the switch. At the same time, it should be noted that when the number of wired devices increases, the number of router ports will also increase. At present, the number of 10G switch ports popular in the market is generally 12,24,32,48. 

Port Types

The 10G SFP+ switch has an excellent performance in network latency and throughput. It is mainly used in servers with high latency-sensitive requirements and LAN networks with large bandwidth. It can be linked with optical fiber cables or DAC/AOC cables.

The 10GBASE-T switch uses a copper cable, which helps IT technicians address LAN bottleneck problems at a low cost. Meanwhile, it fully supports backward compatibility with 100/1000BASE-T. The advantage of 10GBASE-T is that it can be upgraded to 10G Ethernet by using the existing cabling system, providing engineers with the most flexibility.

Unmanaged VS Managed Switch

Comparing unmanaged switches and managed switches, the former is configured with plug-play, it cannot directly control and manage the connected devices. Therefore, the 10G SFP unmanaged switch is only suitable for situations that do not require you to monitor or control the connected devices. You should choose a managed switch when you need to control the network traffic or heavy workload networks for the connected devices. It supports both the VLAN(Virtual Local Area Network) division and SNMP(Simple Network Management Protocol). Everyone can easily operate the managed system through a Web browser or Telnet (a network management protocol), even if you are not a professional IT technician.

Figure 2: Unmanaged Switch

Non-PoE VS PoE Switch

A PoE switch can provide both electricity and data to connected devices using the same Ethernet cable. Typical applications are VoIP phones, wireless access points, and surveillance cameras. Using power over Ethernet switch can save you all costs about the power supply. When choosing a suitable 10GB PoE switch, you should pay attention that the total power consumption of the power over Ethernet switch must be greater than the power consumption of the devices you need to connect. If you have solved the problem of power supply, then a 10 Gigabit non-PoE switch can be selected, which is suitable for network connections with a large number of non-powered network devices.

Conclusion

10G LAN network plays an indispensable role in the future development of the Internet. Using a 10G switch can help your data center have better performance. Through the introduction of this article, I believe you have already known how to choose a suitable 10G switch. If you are still confused about choosing a 10G switch, please contact our customer service via sales@qsfptek.com. QSFPTEK provides a wide range of high-quality managed and unmanaged switches, as well as a range of products such as PoE switches.