How to Choose the Right Layer 3 Industrial Switch？

Layer 3 switches have both data switching and routing forwarding functions, but their main function is data switching; At present, Layer 3 Industrial Switches are showing a strong growth trend and are replacing routers in local area networks, and their huge market potential is attracting with a large number of domestic and foreign manufacturers to join the competition.When choosing a 3 layer industrial switch, faced with such a variety of brands, what factors should be considered by users when choosing a switch.

For the selection of a 3 layer industrial switch, since the network structure and application of different users will be different, the focus of selecting a 3 layer industrial switch is also different. But for users, generally pay attention to the following aspects.

1. Focus on throughput at full configuration

As with any electronic product, when choosing a 3 layer industrial switch, the performance indicators of various products must first be analyzed. However, when faced with factors such as switching capacity (Gbps), backplane bandwidth (Gbps), processing power (Mpps), throughput (Mpps ) and many other technical indicators, you'd better stick to the indicator "throughput at full configuration", because users of other technical indicators generally do not have the ability to measure, only the throughput can be tested by users such as Smart Bits and IXIA Metrics that are directly measured and verified by the meter.

2. Distributed is better than centralized

The switch technologies used by switches of different brands are also different, which can be mainly divided into two types: centralized and distributed. The traditional bus switch fabric module is centralized, and the modern switch fabric module is distributed. Due to the increasing amount of audio, video and data information running in the enterprise intranet, the requirements for the processing capability of the switch are getting higher and higher. In order to achieve high-speed non-blocking switching under the condition of high port density, distributed Layer 3 industrial switches are a wise choice. Because the bus type switch module still cannot avoid the conflict in the Ethernet environment, and the matrix type just avoids the conflict phenomenon when the port is switched.

3. Pay attention to delay and delay jitter indicators

Enterprise intranets are almost all high-speed local area networks. One of their purposes is to transmit large-capacity multimedia data such as audio and video. These large-capacity multimedia data packets should avoid jitter in information transmission due to long delay and packet loss. The delay of some traditional centralized switches is as high as 2s, while the delay of some modern distributed switches is only about 20ms, the difference between the two is hundreds of times. The reasons for the high delay usually include the switching structure of the blocking design and the excessive use of buffers. Therefore, paying attention to the delay actually requires paying attention to the module structure of the product.

4. Stable performance

Layer 3 industrial switches are mostly used at the backbone and aggregation layers. If the performance is unstable, it will affect most of the hosts in the network system, and even the entire network system. Therefore, only the 3 layer industrial switch with stable performance is the guarantee for the continuous, reliable, safe and normal operation of the network system. Of course, performance stability seems abstract and seems to require historical detection to be convincing. In fact, it is not, because the performance of the equipment is actually achieved through a number of basic technical indicators and market reputation. So, you can determine by metrics such as throughput, latency, frame loss, address table depth, end-of-line blocking and many-to-one capabilities, as well as market application research.

5. Safe and reliable

As the core equipment of the network, the 3 layer industrial switch is naturally an important target for hackers to attack, which requires that the 3 layer industrial Ethernet switch must be included in the scope of network security protection. Of course, the "safe and reliable" mentioned here should include the software and hardware of the 3 layer industrial switch. In terms of "security", it is very necessary to have a 3 layer industrial switch that supports firewall functions with excellent performance and no security holes. From the perspective of "reliability", objectively, no product can guarantee that it will not fail, and whether it can quickly switch to a good device when a failure occurs is a problem that needs to be concerned. In addition, the redundancy capability should be considered in the hardware, such as whether the important components such as power supply, management module and port support redundancy, which is especially important for users such as telecommunications and finance that require high security and reliability. There is also the heat dissipation method, such as whether the settings of the cooling fan are reasonable and so on.

Finally, for broadband operators, the authentication function is also an important aspect to examine. In the past, the switch was used for enterprise land, and it was directly connected to the Internet without authentication. Broadband operators, on the other hand, need to confirm that users are on record. When a user accesses the Internet, a window appears, and the user name and password can be entered to pass the authentication. Therefore, the 3 layer industrial switch of the broadband operator should also support some special protocols such as 802.1x to realize the authentication.

6. Fully functional

Products should not only meet the existing needs, but also meet the needs of a period of time in the future, so as to give users a value-added space. For example, when the company's employees increase, you can plug in modules to expand without having to eliminate the original equipment. There are also some functions, such as multicast, QoS, Port Trunking, 802.1d Spanning Tree, and whether to support RIP, OSPF and other routing protocols, which are very important for Layer 3 industrial switches. Taking multicast as an example, in VOD application, if a group of users order a program at the same time, the multicast protocol can ensure that the switch can process data smoothly when the high-density video stream is on demand. On the contrary, if the switch does not support the multicast protocol , the bandwidth occupied is quite large. Another example is the QoS function, which can be divided into different grades according to the different needs of users, enabling broadband operators to charge by port traffic, thereby providing different services for different users. Also, access the list function. If VLANs are divided at the access layer, users in different VLANs cannot communicate because this is based on the second layer of VLANs. To communicate, you must pass through the third layer. For example, the financial department and the marketing department of an enterprise generally do not communicate with each other. If there are users who need access, the network administrator can perform a simple command line setting through a layer 3 industrial switch to enable normal communication between VLANs. This is the access list function. It is a function transplanted from a router to a 3 layer industrial switch, which can realize one-way or two-way communication between different VLANs. If you find that an external IP address always sends useless data packets to your own network, you can set it in the access list to prohibit it from sending data packets.

In addition, the service, ease of use and cost performance of products are also the focus of investigation. Users can choose appropriate functions to purchase appropriate equipment according to their needs, so as to avoid unnecessary waste.