This document is a sample of written work only. Copyright remains the property of the respective owners. • Segmenting the network and enforcing user access   control • Managing Bottlenecks • Controlling Network Bandwidth • Protecting Network from Intrusion and Virus Attack • Upgrading the Firmware • Conclusion Managing Bottlenecks Symmetric switching is usually used by a standard smart switch. This means it can only provide switched connections between ports with the same bandwidth, where only one port can be a member of one VLAN or network segment. This will make it difficult to integrate shared resources into the network. In order to address the one port per VLAN bottleneck, a smart switch that uses asymmetric VLAN is preferred. Asymmetric VLAN offers the flexible implementation of network segmentation and control of shared resources. It provides switched connections between ports of unlike bandwidths, and it is optimized for client/server traffic flows, where multiple clients can simultaneously communicate with a server.   Controlling Network Bandwidth One of the biggest headaches as administrators of any network infrastructure is the control of bandwidth. Regardless whether we are in an unmanaged network or a managed network that is not configured properly, we can face bottlenecks of bandwidth misuse. Today, with so many users using peer-to-peer applications, large amounts of network resources and bandwidth are being consumed, leaving critical applications often with insufficient bandwidth. A good way to deal with insufficient bandwidth is to make sure the switch we are getting has Differentiated Service Code Point (DSCP or DiffServ)-based quality of service (QoS). DSCP provides traffic prioritization and bandwidth utilization control. Besides being able to control traffic flow of applications, it is also capable of managing shared resources to provide more effective and efficient way of minimizing bandwidth abuse.   < PREVIOUS    NEXT >     Copyright © 2010 D-Link International. All Rights Reserved.