On Apr 22, 1:12, Doc wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Apr 2002, Chad Fernandez wrote:
>
> > By commercial grade I just meant that I wanted to avoid the home grade
> > stuff that may not have features, or only a few connections. The type
> > of thing that Best Buy, Staples, or another cunsumer oriented store may
> > carry for your average Windows user.
>
> Amazingly, the home grade stuff that's on the shelves lately really is
> plenty for a home net. The features it doesn't have are next to useless
> on a network with fewer than 25 nodes.
> Stay away from the firewall appliances though. They're notoriously
> easy to get through.
Agreed on both counts.
> > What's the difference between managed and unmanaged?
>
> A serial port, a password, and several decimal points.
That's about it :-)
> Seriously, a managed switch allows you to define which nodes can "go"
> where, force connection parameters - 10Mb or 100, full-duplex or half -
> keep transfer statistics, etc. A really good one will cost over a
> grand. Like I said, I have one, and I prefer my little $70 NetGear
> 10/100 auto-sensing switch.
Unless you're really into networks for their own sake, or have a big enough
one that you need to monitor and manage it remotely, plug-in-and-go is
better.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Received on Mon Apr 22 2002 - 02:35:35 BST