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You Gotta Have Connections! - Part 2
Aug 22, 2024
Well, it seems like I have the network thing licked. I picked up the unit pictured off Amazon for about the same price as as standard replacement unmanaged switch, which is to say less than $100. This one worked great right out of the box with no changes. But wait! There's More! As I said in my last post, the new switch would let me play with something called VLANS (Virtual Local Area Networks).
For example, a VLAN lets me seperate workstation computer traffic and from a household DVR or other bandwidth intensive device. You know what it's like - you start watching a streaming movie and suddenly the "hiccups" or "stutters" start happening because someone else on the network started a 300MB download. VLANS allow you to seperate that traffic so they don't otherwise affect each other.
A network switch is the "traffic cop" in your network. It checks out all incoming traffic and routes it to the appropriate computer or device. As I found out, some are more efficient at this than others. My last one spent more time broadcasting to find the appropriate receiver than actually routing to it. The result is that overall network performance was negatively impacted by all this "yelling" within the switch. This hampers delivery of data, hense the slow network performance. Here's an "old school" example. Imagine a hotel page person walking around the hotel lobby yelling "Workstation Larry paging Server File Folder XYZ..." over and over until the server actually responded. Instead, this switch provides the directions and sends the messenger from the front desk (Workstation Larry) directly to the Server (Server File Folder XYZ). A lot faster (as it should be).
The instructions that came with my switch were fairly easy to understand and follow. After a couple of false starts, I finally got mine running nicely. My online video performance has improved, while my workstation to server access speed has increased dramatically as well.
In the end, a little time spent with the manual has resulted in a network where everyone gets along and shares the Internet service and printers effectively. It's nice to finally have some connections. But like when other people tell you they "Have a guy...", I'm that guy. Nice job Larry!
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