Buying a switch for a home network is usually the cheapest switch to buy from a known brand, while choosing a switch for a business network (regardless of its size and feature requirements) is a more complex decision.
What are the best network switches for small business?
This article explains the importance of choosing the right small business switch, and the key factors in choosing the best switch.
Why does a small business need the right switch?
A network switch is an essential component for any SME to build their business network, it enables SMEs to communicate and share information over a Local Area Network (LAN), connecting people and devices located in local geographic locations such as offices, departments or buildings, Enable collaboration and access to critical business information.
Investing in networking has become increasingly important for most SMEs post-COVID-19 pandemic, if you really want to increase employee productivity and achieve better collaboration within your organization and with your business partners To differentiate your business, you must give serious consideration to purchasing the network switch that best meets your current needs and prepares you for future growth.
What to expect from the right small business switch
While small businesses can be broken down into different industries and have unique needs based on how they work, in general, the right switch can meet these needs of a growing business:
- Provide high-speed network, whether it is data, voice or video applications, to ensure that there will be no network congestion during work.
- Ensure good voice quality for business calls, which is very important for small businesses.
- If a small business is facing a tight budget, it can be affordable without sacrificing quality.
- Easy to install and use, it can save professionals time and cost.
Considerations When Selecting Network Switches for Your Small Business
Selecting a network switch that meets the needs of a small business requires full consideration of the network switch's specifications and features.
Internet speed
The development of switches has gone through 100M and 1000M. With the improvement of data transmission requirements of the majority of users, there are currently 10G switches.
In terms of transmission speed, 10 Gigabit is undoubtedly the fastest, but the power consumption of 10 Gigabit switches is much larger than the other two.
Generally speaking, 250M is required for tasks such as seamless streaming media and conferences, and 500M is required for server hosting, multi-server hosting, massive online backup, continuous cloud computing, etc. However, to achieve zero interruption for these tasks, a speed of 1000 Mbps is required. If we consider both speed and cost, the best option is 1Gbps.
The use of a gigabit switch is more than capable of handling a small business' Internet access, including a wide range of multimedia applications, frequent large file transfers, and other operations.
Number of ports
Generally speaking, the more ports, the lower the cost per port, but that doesn't mean the more options for home networking, the better, often including small to medium hubs such as 4-port, 5-port or 8-port network switches.
A more complex enterprise or server network may require more powerful hardware. The number of people in the company determines the number of switch ports used. If the number of people is between 3-14 and the number of employees does not change much for a long time, you can choose 24 for more than 15 people. Port switches and other network equipment, when you need some redundancy in the number of ports, you can choose a 48-port switch.
port type
There are two different physical ports: fiber optic and electrical.
The optical port is divided into SFP, SFP+, SFP28, QSFP+, QSFP28, etc., and the electrical port is also a network cable interface (RJ45), which is connected to the network cable.
There are two most common port types of 1G switches: RJ45 port and SFP fiber port.
The performance of RJ45 connection and SFP connection is basically the same, but the wiring cost of SFP port is higher. However, SFP port is still essential because it can support both SFP optical modules with electrical ports and optical ports.
In addition, when using the SFP port optical transceiver, the transmission distance is significantly longer than the RJ45 port, and at the same time, the SFP connection between the two switches performs better in practical applications, with high flexibility and scalability.
Voice program-controlled switchboard
By choosing a voice program-controlled switch with QoS policies, automatic VoIP, and automatic voice VLAN functions, your business can run voice traffic through the LAN, and you can replace traditional PBX or telecom services with advanced IP phone systems and IP phones, these systems and IP Phones can interoperate with the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
Using voice program-controlled switches, you can reduce long-distance phone charges and conference service charges, unify voicemail and email messages, and use the same extension to install phones in different locations. It can also help you improve user and employee productivity, and improve customer Serve.
management type
Fully managed switches enable you to manually configure, monitor, and manage devices on the network, and are often chosen by many large enterprises that have high requirements for network configuration.
Unmanaged switches are often referred to as "plug and play", and while this sounds convenient, it implies that there is no ability to configure an unmanaged network switch because it lacks the "brains".
Smart managed switches represent a middle ground between fully unmanaged switches and managed switches, smart managed switches provide some required management features, allowing you to set some important basic functions such as VLAN, speed/duplex Control, SNMP, etc. For small and medium-sized enterprises, the price of this kind of switch is much cheaper than that of a fully managed switch, and the Web-based management method also makes the configuration and maintenance of the device relatively easy.
form factor
The type of switch you choose depends on the layout of your work environment. If you want flexible and quiet operation, desktop and fanless switches are good choices. Desktop switches can be placed on your desk or table. The fanless design provides Quiet working environment, these two designs of switches are ideal for conference rooms and small offices.
Rackmount switches are designed to be placed in wiring closets or other enclosed, physically secure rooms or data centers that typically house other networking equipment such as servers and telephony equipment.
Summarize
Small businesses adapt and evolve, and networks need to grow to keep up. To achieve this, carefully consider the factors above and pay close attention to your current deployment and future needs to determine the right switch for your SMB network.