Introduction; Benefits Of Using Switching Technology - NETGEAR FS566 - Switch Installation Manual

Chapter 1

Introduction

Congratulations on your purchase of the NETGEAR ™ Model FS562 8-Port Fast Ethernet Fiber
Switch or the Model FS566 12-Port Fast Ethernet Fiber Switch. These switches provide you with
a low-cost, high-performance network solution and are designed to support power workgroups
operating at either 10 megabits per second (Mbps) or 100 Mbps.
This guide describes how to install and use the Model FS562 and Model FS566 Fiber Switches.
It includes physical configuration guidelines for connecting multiple 10 or 100 Mbps hubs and for
connecting 10 or 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet stations, PCs, and servers.When discussing features,
functions, or specifications that apply to both switch models, the guide refers to the Model FS562/
FS566 switch.

Benefits of Using Switching Technology

A majority of installed networks today are based on shared network technology. With this
technology, a number of users or groups of users share a total available network bandwidth (or
network capacity) of 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, or other amounts of network bandwidth. For example,
with a total of 10 users, the average bandwidth available to each user on a 10 Mbps network is
calculated as 10/10 Mbps, which equals 1 Mbps of bandwidth per user. On a 100 Mbps
(Fast Ethernet) network, the average bandwidth available to each of the 10 users is 100/10 Mbps,
which equals 10 Mbps of bandwidth per user.
Ethernet switches significantly increase network throughput by segmenting network traffic.
They check traffic coming in to each port to learn which network device is located on which
segment. Based on this information, switches forward cross-segment traffic only to the appropriate
segment. The traffic will not show up in the other segments because it is filtered out. In this way,
network capacity is fully reserved for traffic destined for that segment only, and other segments
will not be saturated with unnecessary traffic.
Introduction 1-1