Allied Telesis AT-GS950/8POE manual Network Topologies, Power Workgroup Topology

Chapter 1: Overview

Network Topologies

Power

Workgroup

Topology

This section describes the network topologies of the AT-GS950/8POE Gigabit Ethernet WebSmart Switch: power workgroup and collapsed backbone. Both types of topologies are described in the following sections.

The topology shown in Figure 4 is commonly referred to as a power workgroup topology. This topology provides the best performance and reliability because each end node is connected directly to the AT-GS950/ 8POE switch with a dedicated network link.

AT-GS950/8POE Gigabit Ethernet WebSmart Switch

AT-GS950/8POE8 Port 10/100/1000Mbps + 2 SFP Combo WebSmart Switch

PORT ACTIVITY POE

1234

ACT

SFP

1000 LINK ACT

RESET POWER 1 2 3 4 5 6 7R 8R 7 8 100 LINK ACT

CLASS 1

LASER PRODUCT

5 6 7R 8R

100/1000Base-X

7 8

SFPSFP

1351

Legend

100Mbps

1000 Mbps

Collapsed

Backbone

Figure 4. Power Workgroup Topology

In the topology illustrated in Figure 5 on page 31, the AT-GS950/8POE switch is connected to managed and unmanaged Ethernet switches to form a collapsed backbone topology. The AT-GS950/8POE switch functions as the focal point of the network by transferring Ethernet frames between switches. This topology reduces the amount of unnecessary traffic in each workgroup, because the AT-GS950/8POE switch transfers frames only when the source and destination end nodes are located on different switches. This frees up bandwidth and improves network performance.

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