Do I Need a Gigabit Switch or 10/100Mbps Switch?

by http://www.fiber-mart.com

Ethernet network speeds have evolved significantly over time and typically range from Ethernet (802.11) at 10Mbps, Fast Ethernet (IEEE 802.3u) at 100Mbps, Gigabit Ethernet (IEEE 802.3-2008) at 1000Mbps and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (IEEE 802.3a) at 10Gbps. Meanwhile, Ethernet switches have also escalated from 10/100Mbps switches to Gigabit switches, 10GbE switch, and even 100GbE switches. The topic came up frequently that “Do I Need a Gigabit Switch or 10/100Mbps Switch?” Gigabit switch vs 10/100Mbps switch, which do I need to satisfy my network speeds requirement? This post will give you the answer.
Gigabit Switch: the Mainstream on Network Switch Market
A Gigabit switch is an Ethernet switch that connects multiple devices, such as computers, servers, or game systems, to a Local Area Network (LAN). Small business and home offices often use Gigabit switches to allow more than one device to share a broadband Internet connection. A gigabit switch operates in the same manner, only at data rates much greater than standard or Fast Ethernet. People can use these switches to quickly transfer data between devices in a network, or to download from the Internet at maximum speeds of 1000Mbps. If a switch says “Gigabit”, it really means the same thing as 10/100/1000, because Gigabit switches support all three speed levels and will auto-switch to the appropriate one when something is plugged in. The following is a Gigabit 8 port poe switch with 8 x 10/100/1000Base-T RJ45 Ethernet ports.
10/100Mbps Switch: Still Alive and Well for Some Reason
10/100Mbps switch is a Fast Ethernet switch released earlier than Gigabit Ethernet switch. The data speed of 10/100Mbps switch is rated for 10 or 100Mbps. When a network switch says “10/100”, it means that each port on the switch can support both 10Mbps and 100Mbps connection speeds, and will usually auto-switch depending on what’s plugged into it. Currently, few devices run at 10Mbps, but it is still alive on the market for some reason. Actually, 10/100 is sufficient for internet browsing and Netflix. But if you will be doing more than one thing with your network connection, such as file transfers, or the set-top box, I would recommend you go with the Gigabit switch.
Gigabit Switch vs 10/100Mbps Switch: How to Choose?
Network engineers who refresh the edge of their campus LAN encounter a fundamental choice: Stick with 100Mbps Fast Ethernet or upgrade to Gigabit Ethernet (GbE). Vendors will undoubtedly push network engineers toward pricier GbE, but network engineers need to decide for themselves which infrastructure is right for the business. Currently, Gigabit switch is much more popular than Fast Ethernet 10/100Mbps switch. Because gigabit switch used in tandem with a gigabit router will allow you to use your local network at speeds up to ten times greater than 10/100Mbps switch. If either of these component are not gigabit, the entire network will be limited to 10/100 speeds. So, in order to use the maximum amount of speed your network can pump out, you need every single component in your network (including you computers) to be gigabit compliant. In addition, by delivering more bandwidth and more robust management, Gigabit switches are also more energy efficient than 10/100Mbps switches. This offers enterprises the opportunity to lower their power consumption on the network edge.
Conclusion
There’s a multitude of switch options to choose from on the dazzling market. So, before determining the right switch for your network, you’re supposed to have a close look at your current deployment and future needs. But for most cases, we recommend you buy Gigabit Ethernet devices instead of Fast Ethernet devices, even if they cost a little bit more. fiber-mart.com provides a full set of Gigabit switches, including 8 port switch, 24 port switch, 48 port switch, etc. With these high performance Gigabit Ethernet switches, your local network will run faster with better internet speed.

How Many Devices Can I Connect to My PoE Ethernet Switches?

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Power consumption of 150W and 400W are the most popular choices on the market. The following are two switches from fiber-mart.com, 8 port PoE switch and 24 port PoE switch, and we’ll use them to further explain the question how many devices can we connect to my PoE Ethernet switches.
How Many Devices Can the 8 Port PoE Switch Connect?
fiber-mart S1150-8T2F switch is a managed PoE+ switch. It has 8 10/100/1000Base-T RJ45 ports, and 2 Gigabit SFP slots. Its PoE standard complies with IEEE802.3af/at. And designed with a max power consumption of 150W, each port can support up to 30W power. This means the switch provides the availability of PoE on all 8 RJ45 ports, and each port can potentially power devices that are connected. From the above, we know the standard PoE can supply 15.4W power for each port, and 30W for PoE+. Therefore, this switch can simultaneously connect 8(15.4W×8=123.2W＜150W) devices that use IEEE 802.3af standard, and only 5(30W×5=150W) devices that use IEEE 802.3at standard. For example, if a typical outdoor IP camera needs a PoE power of 20W, the connection of 7 typical IP cameras will require 140W of PoE power (7×20W), which is well within the power consumption of this network switch.
How Many Devices Can the 24 Port PoE Switch Connect?
fiber-mart S1400-24T4F managed PoE+ switch is designed with 24 Gigabit PoE+ ports, 1 console port and 4 Gigabit SFP ports. This switch complies with IEEE 802.3af/at with a max power consumption of 400W and 30W for each port. Through a calculation, we know the 24 port switch can connect 24(15.4W×24=369.6W＜400W) devices with PoE standard at the same time, and support 13(30W×13=390W＜400W) devices with PoE+ standard. And as for the same outdoor IP camera with a power requirement of 20W, the 24 port switch can support 20(20×20W=400W) cameras.
Conclusion
Knowing the power consumption of PoE Ethernet switches is very important. If you want to connect multiple devices to a PoE switch, you need to calculate the total power consumption that all the devices require, and make sure you PoE switch can provide the needed current.

How to Choose a Gigabit Network Switch?

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Gigabit network switch is the most commonly used equipment in data centers. Before choosing the best network switch for the current or future network, people can type “Ethernet switch” into the online shopping site or search engine, they may find a ton of listings for switches of all kinds and price levels. It’s not an easy job to find one. Then how to choose a Gigabit network switch in order to avoid buying the wrong device or overspending needlessly?
Types of Gigabit Network Switch
Gigabit Ethernet switch can be divided into unmanaged, managed and PoE categories.
Unmanaged switches use the plug-and-play design that means they only allow Ethernet devices to communicate with one another. They are shipped with fixed configuration and don’t allow any changes to this configuration. This type of network switch is normally found in home networks or small business.
Managed switches offer all the features of unmanaged switches and are capable of configuring, managing and monitoring one’s LAN. Users have greater control over how data travels over the network and decide which one has access to it.
PoE switches support electrical power and data transmission over one network cable, which will greatly simplify the cabling process. Using a PoE switch, people don’t need to worry about power outlet when deploying network devices.
Features of Gigabit Network Switch
With a network switch, users can have different networked devices on their desks as well as bandwidth-intensive applications that require high rates of data transmission and no tolerance for congestion. These switches are the basics of modern wired network. They can not only provide the connections to PCs and other devices in a wide variety of fields, but also support the cloud storage of servers. With new trends like SDN and the IoT transforming the industry, people have to get the features that they need from the switches, so that they would know which switch is the one that they need.
How to Choose a Gigabit Network Switch?
Here are the most important facts you should consider when choosing a Gigabit network switch.
Choose the role of the switch. If you are just looking for a device to extend your wired network at home, one unmanaged switch is suitable. And an 8 port Ethernet switch or 12 port switch is enough for home network. If you want to find a switch for a large network, you may buy one or more managed switches acting as core switches. 24 port and 48 port PoE managed switches are the right choice.
Choose the forwarding rate of the switch. Gigabit switches have different processing rate. Processing and forwarding data rates are very important. The processing rate becomes lower, the forwarding rate will be slower. This may make the switch unable to accommodate full wire-speed communication across all the ports. So people should figure out what forwarding rate they need before buying a Gigabit switch.
Conclusion
From the above, we know how to choose a Gigabit network switch. If you have decided to buy a network switch, welcome to visit fiber-mart.COM. fiber-mart has a good selection of 10Gb switch, 40G or even 100G switch and PoE switch for home and office users.

Understanding Fiber Optic Based Light Source

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Each piece of active electronics will have a variety of light sources used to transmit over the various types of fiber. The distance and bandwidth will vary with light source and quality of fiber. In most networks, fiber is used for uplink/backbone operations and connecting various buildings together on a campus. The speed and distance are a function of the core, modal bandwidth, grade of fiber and the light source, all discussed previously. Light sources of the fiber light source are offered in a variety of types. Basically there are two types of semiconductor light sources available for fiber optic communication – The LED sources and the laser sources.
Using single mode fiber for short distances can cause the receiver to be overwhelmed and an inline attenuator may be needed to introduce attenuation into the channel. With Gigabit to the desktop becoming commonplace, 10Gb/s backbones have also become more common. The SR interfaces are also becoming common in data center applications and even some desktop applications. As you can see, the higher quality fiber (or laser optimized fiber) provides for greater flexibility for a fiber plant installation. Although some variations ( 10GBase-LRM SFP+ and 10GBASE-LX4) support older grades of fiber to distances 220m or greater, the equipment is more costly. In many cases, it is less expensive to upgrade fiber than to purchase the more costly components that also carry increased maintenance costs over time.
Light sources of the fiber light source are offered in a variety of types. Basically there are two types of semiconductor light sources available for fiber optic communication – The LED sources and the laser sources.
In fiber-optics-based solution design, a bright light source such as a laser sends light through an optical fiber, called laser light source . Along the length of the fiber is an ultraviolet-light-treated region called a “fiber grating.” The grating deflects the light so that it exits perpendicularly to the length of the fiber as a long, expanding rectangle of light. This optical rectangle is then collimated by a cylindrical lens, such that the rectangle illuminates objects of interest at various distances from the source. The bright rectangle allows line scan cameras to sort products at higher speeds with improved accuracy.
The laser fiber-based light source combines all the ideal features necessary for accurate and efficient scanning: uniform, intense illumination over a rectangular region; a directional beam that avoids wasting unused light by only illuminating the rectangle; and a “cool” source that does not heat up the objects to be imaged. Currently employed light sources such as tungsten halogen lamps or arrays of light-emitting diodes lack at least one of these features.

Fiber Optic Cleaning Kits

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Dry Cleaning: Optic cleaning without the use of any solvent.
Wet Cleaning: Optic cleaning with a solvent. Typically IPA (isopropyl alcohol).
Non-Abrasive Cleaning: Cleaning without abrasive material touching the fiber optic connector end face. Examples are air dusters or pressured solvent jet used in automated in-situ connector cleaners.
Abrasive Cleaning: The popular lint free wipes, reel based Cletop fiber connector cleaners and optic cleaning swabs.

Wipe Paper or Cloth

The traditional way of fiber optic cleaning is to use wipe paper or cloth to clean the optical fiber connector endface. This fiber optic cleaning method is inherently abrasive and sometimes can induce scratches. This dry cleaning step is also necessary after a wet cleaning to remove solvent residue. Lint free cleaning condition is necessary in fiber optic industry. Used with alcohol, this nearly lint free tissue is ideal for fiber and connector end face cleaning.

Connector Reel Cleaner
Connector reel cleaner is a dry cleaning method with a quick, reliable operation and uniform results. They use 2 micrometer weaved polyester cloth to clean optical fiber connectors. One reel cleaner tape may be used for over 400 cleanings. Additional replacement tapes are available and allow continued use of the outer case. This is an abrasive fiber optic cleaning method but pad underneath cleaning cloth mitigates this significantly. Cletop and Optipop are the two most popular brands for reel connector cleaners. We also have the cheaper OAM reel connector cleaners.

Swabs
Precision swabs with mini top. These swabs come in 2.5mm and 1.25mm versions. They are designed for dry cleaning fiber optic connector mating sleeves, bulkhead adapters and receptacles. To clean the endface of connectors already installed in patch panels and hardware devices, you insert the connector cleaning swabs into the bulkhead adapter or receptacle, make the tip contact the connector endface, make a single turn and then pull the stick out and dispose. You should never reuse a cleaning swabs. This is an abrasive fiber optic cleaning method but a resilient stick head mitigates.

One-click Cleaner

This pen cleaner or One-click method is specially designed for fiber optic connectors plugged in patch panels and hardware devices. It’s more like an automated swabs, which allows the cleaning of the end-faces of fiber connectors and in-adapter ferrules with one simple action. The replaceability of the cleaning thread enables the re-utilisation of the cleaning tool, thus avoiding the disposal of the whole tool when the thread is due to be changed. Each replaceable thread provides over 750 ferrule cleaning cycles. The pen cleaner features a special microfiber tissue that removes all contaminations and secures them. Its antistatic property prevents static load that could bring new contamination after the cleaning.They can be used on PC and APC (angled) polished connectors. Both 1.25mm and 2.5mm versions are available. AFL Fujikura, Neoclean and Huxcleaner are popular brands for the one-click cleaners.

We also have the cheaper one-SKU01808O, which is is designed to effectively and quickly clean connector endfaces, both the unmated patchcord and through the adaptor. It cleans the ferrule end faces removing dust, oil, and other debris without nicking or scratching the end face. It is very easy to use and suitable for all 1.25mm and 2.5mm ferrule connectors.

Fiber Optic Cleaning products is being highly recommended as a kind of very important tool for electrical manufactures. One of the most basic and important procedures for the maintenance of fiber optic systems is to clean the fiber optic equipment. With the increasingly growth of using Gigabit Ethernet in our daily life, the importance of keeping the fiber clean is not allowed to be ignored. Any contamination in the fiber connection can cause failure of the component or failure of the whole system. We fiberstore provide many kinds of fiber cleaners such as fiber connector cleaner, Fujikura cleaner, Optical Connector Cleaning Cards, etc. to ease or remove all kind of dirty particles, such as dust, dripping, moist. And the quality is highly confirmed. Buy it with 100% confidence.

Introduction of Fiber Optic Cleaving

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As we know, in most cases, when a fiber is used or spliced, it is essential to prepare clean ends. Stripping, cleaving, polishing are the basic steps to ensure fiber ends clean and smooth. Since we have discussed fiber optic splicing and polishing in the last several weeks, we must know more about them. Cleaving, an essential step of making fiber ends clean, though it’s a simple mean, but it works surprisingly well, at least for standard glass fibers. Thus, I want to share something about the cleaving in this paper today.
Understanding Of Cleaving
Cleaving is one of the processes for termination or splicing. Simple to understand, it “cut” an optical fiber or makes it precisely broken, just like cutting glass plate. But it is different from the general concept “cut”, or perhaps, we may define it as a professional “cut technique” because fiber is cut by scoring or scratching the surface and applying stress so that the glass breaks in a smooth manner along the stress lines created by the scratch. With a properly well done cleaving, the fiber will cleave with a clean surface perpendicular to the length of the fiber, with no protruding glass on either end.
Cleaver – If you have more experiences in the cleaving and splicing, you must know that a right cleaver helps cut out costly mistakes. The working principle of cleaver is very easy to understand. It first holds the fiber under low tension, scores the surface at the proper location and then applies greater tension until the fiber breaks. Automatic cleavers now are widely used because they can produce consistent results, irrespective of the operator. It is easy to use and does not need training. Users just need to clamp the fiber into the cleaver and operate its controls. In addition, there are some cleavers less automated. This kind of cleavers are more dependent on operator technique and less predictable as they require operators to exert force manually for breaking the fiber.
Scribe – Except the cleaver, there is another tool for cleaving which is typically used to remove excess fiber from the end of a connector before polishing. Scribe is a simple hand tool with a hard, sharp tip (generally made of carbide or diamond), that is used to scratch the fiber manually (some scribes are with pen-style shapes). Then the operator pulls the fiber to break it. However, it is less predictable than a cleaver because both the scribing and breaking process are under manual control. Nonetheless, scribe can produce adequate results for polishing so that it is still used today.
Why Is Proper Cleaving So Important?
To get good fiber optic splices or terminations, especially when using the pre-polished connectors with internal splices, it is extremely important to cleave the fiber properly. As we know, fiber splicing requires mating two fiber ends. Any defect of the ends would impact the performance of fiber splicing. For example, if the fiber ends are not precisely cleaved, the ends will not mate properly. Or if the cleaved ends are at an angle, there will be a gap between the fibers that will cause loss in a mechanical splice or uneven fusion splicing. In addition, if there is a protrusion, or lip, on one of the fibers, the two fibers will not butt up against each other and if there are hackle or mist, the ends will reflect or diffuse light, also causing loss.
Warm Tips: A good cleaver is a little expensive but it’s easy to use and do not need much techniques and can help cut out costly mistakes. Of course, inexpensive cleaver provided in most termination kits is common used. If you decide to use such inexpensive cleaver, the point you may remember is that you must learn how to use it properly. Follow directions, but also do what comes naturally to you when using the device, as they are sensitive to individual technique.