Conversation

Should I get a smart Ethernet switch or a dumb one? I can’t think of much point to a smort one other than maybe vlan, but that’s complicated and I probably wouldn’t do it. So a dumb switch is probably best, yea?

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@lily_kdj8 what is a “smart” Ethernet switch? other than specific spec features like VLANs, isn’t Ethernet just Ethernet? what makes them “smart”?

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@sodiboo @lily_kdj8
they can do ip and tcp/udp switching as well, as well as filtering

i think some can even do multipath, which is a surefire way to decimate an unmanaged switch network
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@charlotte @lily_kdj8 oh? what? that sounds more like… routing? it’s a firewall kinda? if it’s doing TCP/IP stuff, it doesn’t feel very “Ethernet switch” to me.
in my mind, “Ethernet switch” is the box that lets me plug more than two computer into a single ethernetwork.

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@sodiboo @lily_kdj8
yeah so the point is that you can control what frames go where and which are dropped, which often requires info from higher levels of the stack (just figuring out how long a packet is for example)

plus you can log in via their management port (also an ethernet port) to configure
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@sodiboo @charlotte @lily_kdj8 and can be very convenient in some (entreprise) contexts where you want to reduce how many equipment you have

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