What Are The Best Switches To Use For Your Business?

Business has changed quite a bit in the last hundred years. Yes, much of it is still exactly the same, which is to say that the idea in business is to turn a profit. The way that we try to make a profit however has changed significantly for a few reasons. First of all, the world moves at a much faster pace now which means you need to adapt and survive. Secondly, technology has become quite rampant and if you want your business to thrive in today's world, you will need to make sure that you embrace it. That being said, having a good switch on your network is absolutely vital. The question you might have at this point however, is what exactly a switch would be.

First of all, while it might look the same, a switch is not a router. With that being the case, you need to treat it a bit differently. For instance while a router has the ability to assign IP's, a switch does not generally have this ability whatsoever. You will need to connect a router to the system if you wish for the switch to work properly in an office environment, although this is a completely different matter. Let's talk a bit about the different switches that you might use in your business endeavours.

3Com Office Connect Gigabit POE Switch

This switch is affordable and permits for Power over Ethernet on all ten ports. For smaller offices this is not a terrible deal, though you will need to do some tweaking if you wish to make use of the VoIP benefits. Also keep in mind that only layer 2 is available. As we said, this works for smaller offices but if you're planning to move up in the world, you might want to look at something a bit bigger.

D-Link xStack DGS 3627

For VoIP and video traffic, this device works quite nicely. As far as security goes, this D-Link is airtight, though there are many who complain the learning curve is a little extreme. The firmware requires a command line interface (CLI) to operate which means only those experienced will be able to make full use of it.

Netgear ProSafe GS724TS

This 20-GigE proprietary stacking backbone is actually quite nice and works well for VoIP and video traffic. The one disadvantage is that high end security and Ipv6 are devoid from this model. In addition to this, you can only stack six switches for a total of 288 ports, which is never a great situation if you are in a larger office building.

These are a few things that you will need to know about switches and finding a good one for your office building may not be the easiest thing to do. Take your time, review the options and finally start networking your office.

By: Vincent A Rogers

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Vincent Rogers is a freelance writer who writes for a number of UK businesses. For information about HP Routers, he recommends Prodec Networks.