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NETGEAR FSM726S Release Note

Netgear fsm726s: release note
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Download this manual See also: Software User Manual, Installation Manual
Switch Management: Why Your Small Business Needs It, February 1, 2002
Small-business networking environments are more powerful than ever. From e-mail to office
suites and mission-critical applications, networks give employees the tools to do their jobs, while
providing small businesses with the performance and flexibility they need to be agile
competitors in today's challenging global marketplace.
To remain competitive, small businesses are equipping their employees with desktop personal
computers (PCs), notebook PCs, and an Information Technology (IT) infrastructure in an
effort to maximize productivity while lowering total operating expenses. In reality, most small
businesses with 250 or fewer employees cannot take full advantage of their networked
environment unless it can be managed simply, effectively, and affordably. Otherwise, the total
costs of ownership (TCO) can spiral out of control, preventing small businesses from realizing
the full value of their environment.
Among the hidden costs of a poorly managed small-business network are:
Lost time due to excessive network downtime.
Low productivity due to bottlenecks and poor understanding of network traffic patterns.
Configuration and management tools which are difficult to use.
Adopting a managed solution that forces customers into buying high-priced products from
a single network vendor to ensure interoperability with their existing investment. This
limitation prevents customers from mixing and matching best-of-breed products from
different vendors, which can offer greater capabilities at a lower cost than a solution they are
locked into.
Contrast the points above to a well-managed small-business network that has adopted a
managed-switch solution specifically designed for small businesses. In this environment:
Switch and traffic monitoring help head off problems before they occur, reducing user
downtime.
Management tools offer an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) that simplifies
configuration and monitoring tasks.
Management functions can be performed remotely using a web browser or directly via a
console directly connected to the switch.
4500 Great America Parkway • Santa Clara, CA 95054
1

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Summary of Contents for NETGEAR FSM726S

  • Page 1 Contrast the points above to a well-managed small-business network that has adopted a managed-switch solution specifically designed for small businesses. In this environment: Switch and traffic monitoring help head off problems before they occur, reducing user downtime. Management tools offer an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) that simplifies configuration and monitoring tasks.
  • Page 2 Managed switches also hold the key to the emerging capabilities that small-business networks are expected to provide, now and in the future. This white paper shows how small businesses can benefit from a managed switch. It describes the basic and advanced management features found in managed switches, and provides practical suggestions for putting managed switches to work for you.

  • Page 3: Gigabit Ethernet Support

    Port Monitoring One of the core objectives of switch management is its ability to monitor the number of data packets sent or received on every switch port. Determining which ports are being used more than others allows companies to identify traffic patterns, monitor network trends, and determine appropriate bandwidth needs so that the appropriate changes can be made to the network to increase performance and efficiency.
  • Page 4 Internet Protocol (IP) address to the switch. Once the IP address is assigned, you can access the switch from any PC or workstation that has an Internet connection and a Web browser.

  • Page 5: Fault Isolation

    With capacity planning, small businesses can: Measure their current network capacity For example, determine which switch ports handle the most network traffic and which handle the least and at which times.
  • Page 6 Auto-sensing switch ports connected to these devices are unable to ascertain the attached device’s maximum speed. Therefore, small businesses with legacy devices should look for a managed switch whose port speed can be manually configured to match the speed of the older devices.

  • Page 7: Port Trunking

    With port trunking, multiple switch ports are combined (or aggregated) to form a single high- speed connection. Figure 1 shows an example of port trunking. With port trunking, bandwidth increases by the number of links combined. For example, using three 100 Mbps connections in a port-trunking configuration results in a 300 Mbps capability.

  • Page 8: Vlan Support

    While you can have more than one VLAN on a switch, computers on different VLANs cannot communicate directly without going through a router (that would defeat the purpose of having a VLAN, which is to isolate a part of the network).
  • Page 9 While the IEEE specification has been a long-awaited advancement for switch vendors and users alike, there is a catch: all the applications and devices along a data flow's path must also support CoS to meet the goal of providing end-to-end CoS.

  • Page 10: Spanning Tree Support

    A network topology that contains redundant paths creates loops. When loops exist, broadcast packets sent to all switches on the network are flooded back to the sending switch. As the packets are broadcast, received, and rebroadcast by each switch on the network, the number of packets traversing the LAN grows exponentially, creating a broadcast storm that saturates the network and degrades performance.
  • Page 11 After all, in a small-business environment, a management feature’s ease of use can ultimately determine whether that feature is used. The fact that you may be using the switch in the heat of a network outage makes ease of use as...
  • Page 12 scalability to support a business’ current and future needs. This approach allows small businesses that are building their networks with future growth in mind to start small while thinking big.
  • Page 13 Glossary This glossary defines the technical terms used in this white paper. Term Collision Internet Intranet Local Area Network (LAN) Packet Segment Definition The situation where two or more stations try to send a data packet on the same network at the same time. The result of a collision is generally a garbled message.

  • Page 14: Vlan Tagging

    With 24 10/100 Mbps ports and two, gigabit ports and two stacking ports, the FSM726S can stack to support 144 10/100 Mbps ports and 12 gigabit ports. More importantly, the FSM726S supports the basic and advanced management features...

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