Installing The Workgroup Gigaswitch

Instant Gigabit Series

nates the need to purchase new hardware, rewire and reconfigure an entire site all at once. This scalability factor ensures that Fast Ethernet will not fall obsolete to upgrades in speed standards and maintains use of all your old equipment until you decide to buy speedier replacements.

Scalability allows you to budget for your networking needs over time.

Now networks can run fast and slow segments at the same time for different users and departments.

Switches also feature full-duplex data transfer, meaning that all computers on the switch can “talk” to the switch at the same time. Plus, switches can send and receive data simultaneously to all connections, whereas a hub can- not. A hub simply works with one computer at a time and only sends or receives data, since it cannot handle two way communication.

In addition to full-duplex transfer, your Switch surges your network with dedicated bandwidth to each node. For instance, if you connect five com- puters to your EtherFast 10/100/1000 8+1 Workgroup GigaSwitch, then each computer will get a dedicated bandwidth of 100Mbps at full duplex transfer. If you run 5 computers from a 100Mbps hub, then each computer will only share a part of the 100Mbps bandwidth.

A network without a switch is called a shared network because every node on the network competes for a fraction of the total bandwidth. In a shared network, data packets are randomly broadcasted to all stations until they discover their intended destination. Consequently, considerable time and bandwidth is wasted on data packets swimming along network lines before they find their correct address. A switch, on the other hand, looks at the address for each data packet and delivers it directly to the correct destination.

Gigabit Ethernet is ideal for deployment as a backbone interconnect between 10/100BASE-T switches, and as a connection to high-performance servers. With the addition of Gigabit Ethernet, Ethernet delivers scalable solution (10/100/1000 Mbps) for the LAN from the desktop to the workgroup, and the backbone.

EtherFast® 10/100/1000 8+1 Workgroup GigaSwitch

Installing the EtherFast® 10/100/1000 8+1 Workgroup GigaSwitch onto Your Network

Overview

Installing your EtherFast® 10/100/1000 8+1 Workgroup GigaSwitch may involve installing both an adapter and the GigaSwitch. If you are integrating these items into an existing nework, some additional steps may be necessary involving settings for your existing equipment. Consult your Network Administrator for more information about how the GigaSwitch will interface with your existing network components.

Connecting Computers To Your Switch

Your Switch’s rear panel has eight standard RJ-45 ports, plus a Gigabit port. Each 10/100 port automatically detects the speed and duplex of the attached cabling to a network card, switch, hub, etc. The ports operate in either full or half duplex, which lets you run at speeds of 200Mbps, 100Mbps, 20Mbps or 10Mbps. The Gigabit port operates at 1000Mbps or 2000 Mbps.

Each 10/100 port on your Switch can connect to workstations, file servers, hubs, repeaters, bridges, routers or other switches. Connections to the switch require UTP Category 5 network cabling with RJ-45 tips, not to exceed 100 meters (328 feet) in length.

To connect a computer directly to the switch, plug one end of a standard net- work cable into the switch, then plug the other end of the cable into the com- puter's network adapter.