Figure 4: SMC’s Smart Switch solutions

Smart Switch QoS

web management SMC Networks has over 30 years experience in designing
interface and manufacturing network equipment. SMC’s Smart
Switches support all Ethernet speeds: 10 Mbps. 100 Mbps
or 1 Gbps over standard Cat 5 UTP copper cabling using
RJ45 connectors. They can be used with standard
Ethernet patch cables or cross-over cables; the Auto-
MDIX support simply determines what cable is
connected and it does the necessary. This means they
can be used with existing cabling systems without the
Smart Switch Solutions
need for an expensive network cabling refit.
Improve your network performance and introduce new cost-saving voice and video
applications without downgrading your existing network service.

In summary, SMC Networks’ EZ Switch™ range of Smart

Figure 5:
Smart Switch Switches provides full support for:
port trunking
web interface • 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet connections with
Auto-MDIX plug-and-play RJ45 UTP copper interfaces
• Port and tag based VLAN support
• Port trunking with up to eight ports per bundle
• Prioritisation of traffic based on IEEE 802.1p, IP port
or DSCP
• Simple-to-use web-based management tools

SMC Smart Switches

The SMCGS16-Smart EZ Switch™ 10/100/1000 is a 16
port Smart Switch designed for small to medium sized
businesses. It is ideal for companies moving from Fast
Ethernet to Gigabit Ethernet as the auto-sensing ports
can support all Ethernet speeds using patch or cross-
over cables.

The SMCGS24-Smart EZ Switch™ 10/100/1000 is a 24

port Smart Switch designed for small to medium sized
businesses. Like the smaller version, it provides plug-
and-play Ethernet capabilities with a web based
management interface to set up those smart features
required for handling today’s traffic mix including voice
and video.

For more information

For more information about SMC’s unique Smart Switch For More information
solutions and to find out how they can help you improve your
network performance and introduce new voice and video
applications, contact your local SMC reseller or visit our
website at www.smc.com to locate your nearest SMC reseller.

©2005 SMC Networks. EZ Switch™, TigerSwitch™, EliteConnect™ and EZ Connect™ are trademarks of SMC Networks.
Smart Switch Solutions
Smart networks need Smart Switches
Small to medium businesses are capitalizing on the low cost
and wide availability of high-speed broadband networks by
deploying applications that previously only the largest
Fortune 500 company could afford. The dramatic cost
savings achievable with Internet Telephony and video
conferencing are now feasible for even the smallest
organization. But the introduction of real-time voice and
video traffic into a local area network needs careful
consideration if the results are to be successful. Without the
proper traffic control mechanisms to prioritize and rate limit
the data packets, voice streams can become unintelligible
and video images will start to pixelate and break up entirely.
So how can small companies exploit the drastic cost savings
that voice and video streaming can give? They don't need
enterprise class network switches and routers but do need
basic management functionality. This is where SMC can help.
SMC's Smart Switches combine the simplicity of plug-and-
play unmanaged switches with all the advanced traffic
control features that are needed for deploying high
performance real-time applications such as voice and video.
But SMC does this with simple to use web-based
management interfaces so that you don't need to use a
cryptic command line interface to set it all up. SMC combines
the latest innovations with over 30 years of design
experience to give you the smartest switching solutions on the
market today.
Unmanaged Switch What can a Smart Switch do? Figure 2: Ethernet port trunking
A Smart Switch allows you to control local area network
traffic by:
• Limiting the amount of broadcast traffic and increasing
security using VLANs
• Removing potential bottlenecks by introducing port
trunking
• Prioritising time-sensitive traffic such as voice and video
using Traffic Prioritisation
VLANs
The great thing about Ethernet is that it is plug-and-play.
Features Just plug the Ethernet device into a switch and they will
• 10/100/1000 Auto-MDIX Ethernet ports find each other and start talking to each other. The
• 5-24 copper ports downside of this is that Ethernet is very "chatty" and Traffic prioritisation
Network applications such as voice and video need their own
• No cooling fans broadcasts a lot of messages to each device connected to
dedicated bandwidth to ensure the required quality of
• Plug and play operation the switch. For a 4 port switch this is not a problem but
service levels are maintained. But with modern high
once you start to connect 50 or even 500 devices, the
performance QoS-aware Smart Switches, this traffic can be
amount of broadcast traffic can start to seriously slow down
Smart Switch and degrade the network.
properly prioritised, controlled and mixed with the traditional
traffic in the local area network as shown in Figure 3.
To cut down on the amount of broadcast traffic you can
Figure 3: Traffic prioritisation
create Virtual LANs (or VLANs for short) which operate as
separate broadcast domains. This means that members of a
VLAN can only talk directly to other members of the VLAN
as shown in Figure 1. Not only does this reduce the traffic
overhead, it also provides security between the two
domains. For instance, shared file folders in one domain will
not be visible to another domain.

What is a Smart Switch? Figure 1: Ethernet VLAN switching

The €30 Ethernet switch that you can now buy in any
computer store is typically an unmanaged device. While it is
fine for connecting a few PCs and laptops in a home or single
room office environment, it is not appropriate for use in a
small company network with many PCs and servers often
located in different rooms or floors. For these environments a
more intelligent switch is needed to give the required levels
of control, network performance, security and reliability.
But as companies deploy real-time applications such as voice
over IP and video streaming, the new traffic can easily impact
or be affected by the existing network traffic. For instance,
although the actual bandwidth required by a voice over IP
conversation is relatively small - about 100 Kb/s on average -
it must be delivered with little delay variation or jitter.
Otherwise the voice patterns will break up and be
incomprehensible to the listener at the other end. Similarly,
video streams need larger amounts of bandwidth but are just
as susceptible to jitter or delay.
Up to now, the only alternative to a basic unmanaged switch
was a full function managed L2 switch or L3 switch/router.
For small businesses without their own IT or network support
personnel, the configuration and management of these
devices can be a daunting task. But not any longer: SMC's
Smart Switches combine the simplicity and plug-and-play
features of unmanaged switches with the advanced traffic
control features of managed switches. They offer the right
balance of ease-of-use coupled with real-time traffic control
mechanisms without the need for all the sophisticated
features provided by higher cost fully-featured managed
switches. A simple to use web-based management interface
makes it easy to set up the control features needed to handle
these new applications correctly.
Features
•10/100/1000 Auto-MDIX Ethernet ports
•8-24 copper ports
• Configurable IEEE 802.1Q VLANs
•Port trunking using LACP
• Flexible QoS controls for prioritization and rate limiting
• Web based management tool
Managed Switch
Features
• 10/100/1000 Auto-MDIX Ethernet ports + optional swappable
interfaces for fibre and Gigabit options
•Higher density with stackable options and redundant power
•Port trunking using LACP
•More security features including IEEE 802.1x, TACACS+,
RADIUS
•More sophisticated VLANs including GVRP and VLAN STP
•Comprehensive QoS controls including ACL filtering,
multicast control and buffer queuing
• GUI Network management system with stackable support
Smart Switch
Port trunking
When large numbers of end-users need to access shared
resources such as file servers or data base storage, the
connection to the server or storage device can become a
bottleneck. For instance, it only needs 10 PCs with 100 Mbps
connections performing transfers to and from a shared file
server to saturate a 1 Gbps connection to the server.
The solution is to use port trunking to bundle multiple
connections and use the combined bandwidth as if it were
a single larger pipe. In the example shown in Figure 2
below, the Gigabit links to the file servers would become
bottlenecks as more and more PCs connect to them. The
solution is to quadruple the Gigabit links to each file server
providing four or even eight times the bandwidth without
using the Smart Switch solution.
This traffic is controlled by:
• Using IEEE 802.1P to define up to eight traffic classes.
These classes can be labelled as urgent, business critical
and best-effort and the intervening switches and routers
set up to prioritise the traffic accordingly.
• Using rate limiting to ensure high volume data does not
swamp the rest of the network. For instance, video traffic
generated by a video conference session can be rate
limited to the speed at which the receiving station
can receive and process the video stream.
Web management tools
Although basic Ethernet switching is a plug-and-play system,
the setting up of complex traffic control mechanisms
requires manual intervention. Most switch vendors have
implemented a basic command line interface or CLI using
a complex text language. Some vendors do provide graphical
configuration tools but these are often an additional expense
and do not support a mix of equipment from different
vendors.
A web-based management interface makes it easier to
configure traffic control features on a switch. It is easy and
intuitive to use and since it only requires a web browser
interface, it can be accessed by any available computer with
the appropriate username and password. By implementing
the web server on the switch, no separate expensive
software needs to be purchased and installed on the network
management stations over and above a simple web browser.
Figures 4 and 5 shows an example of how easy it is to set up
QoS and port trunking on an SMC Smart Switch.