Smart Switch vs Managed..

[AMD'er]

Quick question...what is the true difference between the 2? I have read that a smart switch is limited to a web base interface and gives you less control or should I say fine tunning. Is there any other major difference?

[CGR]

Cost is a big difference. Smart switched are less expensive. You also may not need managed switches, where a smart switch will give you what you need with the added bonus of slight configuring.

[AMD'er]

Cost is a big difference. Smart switched are less expensive. You also may not need managed switches, where a smart switch will give you what you need with the added bonus of slight configuring.


Thanks....I knew there was big difference in price, but had a friend who was tring to decided which one to go with...smart or managed...I told him for his setup up a smart would do the trick..

[SuperMiguel]

what is his setup?

[AMD'er]

what is his setup?


Its for a small business with about 48 PC's total...they want to upgrade their hardware and he was tring to decide which route to take as far as hardware. I believe they have a smaller budget or a budget they are want to stay within...I do know that they can afford some 2 managed switches but he was thinking about saving them some money...

[SuperMiguel]

if his network is working fine, and he is wonder if he needs a managed switch.. He doesnt need one

[GreenJelly]

Smart Switches are easier to setup, While Managed Switches are completely configurable. There are some very good smart switches that run very fast, and can cost as much as managed switches. But as you go up in cost, they eventually all become managed.

I just bought a Dell PowerConnect 5224's used on Ebay for around $115 with shipping. This is what you can expect for these 24 port switches. Using 2 of them with fiber connecting them will provide 48 ports, but I would recommend going with 3 if you where going that route.

I have no problems with Mine, but I have yet to configure it at all. Still working on how to get to the Web Management Utility, and I hope I do not need to use a Com Port to do so.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6753865

For more information on My Purchase. I am using this for home, but it is beefy enough to handle any 100mbps business, and probably 3 would probably provide enough bandwidth for all but the most intensive network activies (for instance, is your buisness into Video Editting?).

Essentially it comes down to power and reliability. If you want to use heavy 1000mbps (something Like what comes from video streaming and video editing from many machines at once), then you will definately want to step up in cost. However if your doing basic file sharing, database access, etc... then a managed or smart at a lower cost will work fine.

Reliability is also a factor. A used switch is inexpensive, but if it goes down their are no warranties. Also, If a switch fails the cost to the business is very large. I guess you have to decide what is the cost of a downed network as opposed to a higher costing switch. 48 employees waiting around for a new switch is not a fun place to be in. Suddenly that extra $1,000 you COULD of spent doesn't seem so much.

[DreamerBrian]

Reliability is also a factor. A used switch is inexpensive, but if it goes down their are no warranties. Also, If a switch fails the cost to the business is very large. I guess you have to decide what is the cost of a downed network as opposed to a higher costing switch. 48 employees waiting around for a new switch is not a fun place to be in. Suddenly that extra $1,000 you COULD of spent doesn't seem so much.

Agreed.

If your friend is the network administrator at this business then he should urge the concerned managers to invest in the business's infrastructure. After all, its his ass when the network goes down, and as the SME he should have no problem convincing upper management that it is a rationally sound investment. When a business tries to cut costs by cutting corners they eventually end up regretting it.

Brian

[mbentley]

GreenJelly, while you make good points, you bumped a year and a half old thread ;)

i think it is safe to say the OP has probably bought a switch if they were looking for one.

[DreamerBrian]

:shock: That's what I get for not checking the date.

[Ninth]

But this brings the amazing opportunity for a "before and after"; what ended up happening, I MUST KNOW :P

[GreenJelly]

Wow, How did I run into it.

Anyways the best thing to do is go through contracts with a company that can offer next day or faster response time.

[Schuby]

Hi,

Sorry for bringing this thread back; it's still amongst the top results in Google when searching for the difference between smart vs managed switches.

I'm putting together a Counter Strike: Source LAN party with about 30 people attending. I was thinking of having two 16 port switches for the two 15 person teams and having those switches connect to an 8 port "core" switch which will have the server connected to it. I was also thinking that the two 16 port switches should be 10/100 with a gigabit uplink to the core switch and the core switch should be all gigabit? Comments?

I'm looking at using all managed switches as I believe that will make it a lot easier to troubleshoot. However managed switches are pretty expensive and I was wondering how smart switches compare to L2/L3 managed switches??

Also I'm finding it difficult to locate 16 port 10/100 switches with a gigabit uplink. All switches seem to be going all gigabit now and I'm worried that if the table switches are gigabit, will that not put too much strain on the uplink port to the core switch??? Comments?

Thank you.

[dropadrop]

Of course having gigabit ports will put more stress on the link, but on the other hand it will also ensure transfers are finished faster. You might want to look at gigabit switches and bonding for trunks where you could actually use two ports for uplink doubling the bandwith. Personally I would not invest in 100mbit switches any more, but if your budget does not allow for more / people are really just playing and transferring files to each other in this lan party (HAH), then 100mbit should be just fine.

Somehow this whole "smart switch" term sounds a bit funny to me. Aren't smart switches just really managed switches? If you don't need any advanced features the whole management part just adds to the price. What you generally might get in a managed switch vs. a dumb one:

- Vlan support
- Trunking / bonding interfaces
- Spanning tree
- SNMP support
- Traffic shaping / throttling
- Search capabilities for finding what port a specific mac-address is on
- Port monitoring

The managed switch would allow you to find whoever is bogging down the network, but it would still require you monitor the switch somehow (maybe run cacti on the server). You would want to group the people most likely to share files with each other on the same 16-port switches so they don't congest the 8-port core switch, and also choose a core switch with backplane switching speeds of over 2gbit/s (or 4gbit/s if you use bonding).

The biggest reason for you to choose a managed switch would be getting one that allows for traffic priorization by type; that way you could give high priority to the games and voip (if people use voip to talk to each other) and put low priority to anything related to transferring big files.

[GreenJelly]

I think a few used Switches at good prices, regardless of what type, will do a great job.

Honestly, the only time and reason I went to a managed switch is because I do video work on multiple computers and some other very extreme situations (like 1,000's of connections). These situations would overwelm my commercial switches, and a heavy switch was needed. As far as the LAN party, you do need to run a server. So one connection needs to goto the server and then the rest to the computer. Even with "Dumb" switches expect sub 10ms response times. If you get any more it is because your server does not meet the requirements (Memory, CPU Speed, Etc.)

Smart switches are somewhat like managed switches except they are more dumby proof. In addition they are more limited in various ways depending on the switch. Its really a catch all for any switch that does not quite meet the requirements of "Managed".

[DreamerBrian]

maybe run cacti on the server

Thanks for recommending this program! After researching it, I can say that it looks like it has a lot of utility and would prove to be very useful in the future!

:clap::thup:

Brian

[dropadrop]

Thanks for recommending this program! After researching it, I can say that it looks like it has a lot of utility and would prove to be very useful in the future!

:clap::thup:

Brian

Cacti is great, you can monitor almost anything with it if the host just supports snmp. If you have had it monitoring for a long time it can also help you debug strange problems since you will have historical data to compare with.