Enterprises recognize that all of the new technologies they want to deploy – IoT, edge computing, serverless, containers, hybrid cloud, and AI – require a robust, flexible, secure, self-healing, software-driven network.
And the industry has responded with fresh new approaches such as software-defined networking (SDN), SD-WAN, hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and intent-based networking.
NETGEAR Fully Managed Switches connect end-users, critical services, servers and storage across flexible core, distribution and access layers. Our Managed Infrastructure combines latest advances in hardware and software engineering for higher flexibility, lower complexity and stronger investment protection. A single-pane-of-glass management platform – NMS300 – increases overall operational efficiency.
Managed Ethernet switches have more capability than unmanaged switches, but they also require a skilled administrator or engineer to make the most of them. A managed switch enables you to have better control of your network and all the data frames moving through it. Unmanaged switches, on the other hand, enable connected devices to communicate with one another in their most basic form.
Below, we compare the differences between managed and unmanaged switches.
Unmanaged Ethernet switches
Unmanaged switches use autonegotiated ports to determine parameters such as the data rate and whether to use half-duplex or full-duplex mode. Additionally, unmanaged switches have no concept of virtual LANs (VLANs). Thus, all devices belong to the same broadcast domain.
Our list of the 10 most powerful companies in enterprise networking includes the traditional networking powerhouses, with an emphasis on the extent to which they've embraced these new approaches.
managed switch
In addition, we're recognizing pure-play market leaders in areas such as wireless networking, HCI and SD-WAN.
With $35.3 billion in sales last year, Huawei’s carrier business group became the world’s largest vendor of telecom network infrastructure. Huawei’s equipment has been a major part of LTE rollouts in China, East Asia, Europe and many emerging markets.