[plug] [OT] Managed switch - Question

[James Elliott]

Thanks Craig - best explanation I have ever had on this matter!

James

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Craig Ringer" <craig at postnewspapers.com.au>
To: <plug at plug.linux.org.au>
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2003 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: [plug] [OT] Managed switch - Question


> > I understand that, in general terms, switches route data to the intended
> > source's port on the switch, whereas a hub broadcasts it to all ports on
the
> > hub, but I am not completely sure what "managed" means and the
difference
> > between and unmanaged switch and a hub.
>
> Ignore hubs - if you understand the difference between a hub and switch,
> that's all you need to know there. Both managed and unmanaged switches
> have the same significant difference from a hub (packet switching not
> dumb broadcasting).
>
> A managed switch is a switch that you can manually manage. You can do
> things (depending on the switch) like tell it that a given MAC address
> is on a given port, even if it doesn't think it is. You can create
> things like vLANs. You can sometimes control /how/ it switches
> (store-and-forward or another method). You can also often tell them not
> to "learn" what MAC addrs are behind what ports at all, and take
> complete manual control of that function. They often also provide things
> like the ability to "mirror" all traffic out a single port (handy if
> your switch has gigabit ports).
>
> On the other hand, an unmanaged switch "learns" the network layout and
> makes switching decisions by itsself. Most managed switches can function
> happily as unmanaged switches until you need to take partial or total
> manual control.
>
> I've got a NetGear FSM726S managed switch here and its a perfect example
> of a managed switch that you don't /have/ to manually manage unless you
> need to.
>
> Craig Ringer
>
>