Downers Grove, IL (November 7, 2007) - Contemporary Controls has often been asked this question, “When should I use a managed Ethernet switch?” The answer is somewhat involved, but R&D Manager Bennet Levine offers some insights in this white paper.
The paper briefly discusses the role of Plug-and-Play (PnP) switches which leads to the question, “What is a managed switch?” Levine said a managed switch contains all the features of unmanaged switches with added functionality such as SNMP, IGMP snooping, port mirroring, VLAN, rate control, and more.
If you have a larger network, you may want to use managed switches. The paper examines specific features of managed switches in the following cases:
When you have a large network you will probably need managed switches simply to be able to diagnose problems.
When you have multicast traffic on your network (for example when using EtherNet/IP).
When downtime is expensive.
When you are interconnecting office and control networks.
