Necessity Of Using Managed Industrial Switches

The managed switch allows users to log in to the switch and adjust the setting parameters, so as to manage, configure and supervise the network in a variety of ways. They can also provide better control over how data is transmitted and who can access it. The managed switch usually provides SNMP protocol (Simple Network Management Protocol), enabling users to turn on the status of the monitor switch and each port, and also provide statistical information such as traffic throughput, network error information, port status, etc.

As time goes by, network administrators can track and use these data to troubleshoot and observe network capacity. The port of the managed switch can be configured to trunk mode, which is a process in which data is marked with vlan and multiple vlan frames are transmitted through a link. The trunk port is used for the link between two switches or VM servers with multiple vlans. The network administrator can also continue virtual aggregation of multiple ports to form a bundled link, so that the link can provide higher speed, such as twice, four times, and eight times. Finally, the managed switch can provide remote access. Through the command line or web interface, the administrator can access from different physical locations to modify the configuration or adjust parameters.

In reality, customers may deploy managed Industrial Switches for the following reasons:

Investment protection for future development - some customers find the additional functions of the managed industrial switch more attractive. Although they may not implement these functions immediately, the price is not much higher than that of unmanaged industrial switches, so they can make decisions easily.

Simple implementation of network control function - the managed industrial switch allows customers to assign IP addresses, configure virtual local area networks (VLANs) for network segments, specify traffic priority through IEEE802.1p tags, and monitor the status through the Web interface.

Value - The price of the managed industrial switch is very close to the price of the unmanaged industrial switch, but the managed industrial switch can provide a more powerful switching solution than the unmanaged industrial switch.

In practical applications, when the Internet connection fails, if it occurs in the optical fiber segment, or in the network segment between the camera and the media converter, the media converter or the unmanaged industrial switch will not tell you where the failure is, because it is a fool! Therefore, you can find the fault only by running to the spot to check whether the camera and media converter are all normal.

Let's calculate an account. Regardless of the initial product cost, the MTTR (mean repairable time) of all system software=fault diagnosis time+fault repair time. Because it is impossible to identify the fault point at the first time, the fault diagnosis time is likely to be 3 hours or more (people go to the fault point on foot, check and return). Therefore, from the perspective of management, the application architecture composed of unmanaged industrial switch equipment has great security risks.

As a professional industrial communication solution provider, we recommend that you:

1. If you must use optical fiber cable for long-distance transmission, please try not to use unmanaged media converters in pairs;

2. If the cost budget is sufficient, please select the managed industrial switch;

3. If the cost budget is relatively limited, please at least use the managed industrial switch at the field end to replace the unmanaged media converter.

In short, the managed industrial switch is a product category in the field of LAN industrial Ethernet switch, and is the upgrade of the unmanaged industrial switch. It not only has the advantages of unmanaged industrial switch solutions (low complexity and entry-level price), but also adds additional functions and flexibility. It has many features that ordinary industrial switches do not have, such as port monitoring and VLAN division.