HP Network Fibre Channel Switch

What Are Enterprise Network Switches?

The key to networking is making connections. Personal computers often do the majority of their work on their own, but this is not the case with business where everything is normally interconnected and managed to get the most out of the technology.

What is a Switch?

One of the key pieces of any network architecture is the switch. Unlike a router that connects networks like a home LAN and the Internet, a switch links all its attached devices to a single network. In many ways, it works a lot like a hub only much smarter. Where a hub broadcasts packets to all attached devices, a switch can pick and choose where to send data packages, providing far more effective bandwidth usage. There are two kinds of switches.

• Managed: Most commonly appearing in the enterprise, management features enable the IT department to control the configuration of their HP switch for both performance and security.
• Unmanaged: Usually found at home, they are easy-to-use with plug and play simplicity but often lack any configuration options at all.

What is Fibre Channel?

Fibre Channel is a high speed switchable network technology that is commonly used for storage applications. It uses rack-mountable hardware and has largely replaced SCSI due to its scalability and performance. Note that the standard deliberately uses the "Fibre" spelling as opposed to fiber because it is not a purely optical interface. When initially released in 1997, it offered 1 Gbps of bandwidth, but later revisions have pushed this up to 128 Gbps under optimal circumstances. The standard offers two great advantages over many other solutions for data center use:

• Flexibility: Fibre Channel is a connection-agnostic technology that can work in conjunction with everything from coaxial cable to unshielded twisted pair and even fiber optic cables. This lets you make use of existing cable runs when necessary.
• Range: While copper generally limits the interface to a range of approximately 100 feet, shifting to fiber optics gives you high speed connectivity out to 10 kilometers, just over 6 miles, without degradation.

Switches in Networking

HP switches perform a vital task in a wide range of networking situations. They not only handle packet switching but also provide the backbone that enables communication throughout the enterprise. The use of fibre channel technology in conjunction with traditional Ethernet solutions enables local businesses to maintain high speed access to off-site data without the performance cost that often comes with such installations. When combined with active management systems, it lets you keep more control over the network even in the face of security threats without compromising performance.