How to Build 10GbE Network for Small and Mid-Sized Business?

Updated on Apr 20, 2018 by

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Nowadays, there are so many data and applications running on the network, and traffic will continue growing definitely. Ethernet switches, as an integral part of networking, provide the necessary speed and efficiency to handle data traffic. Therefore, more components such as layer2/3 managed switch and unmanaged switch and routers are used in networks to achieve high performance. However, upgrading to 10GbE network, it’s not always a simple process but there are certainly solutions today that help make it easier.

10GbE SMB Network Access Layer Deployments

When it comes to building 10GbE network, components like storage and server, network core switch, access switch with 10G up links, 10G SFP+ modules, Cat6a Copper cables and 10G network interface cards (NICs) are needed. Switches are for data processing, SFP+ modules and cat6a copper cables are for link connection, and network interface cards are for servers and storage devices.

Required Components for 10GbE SMB Network

Storage and Server

Today’s businesses generate more data than ever before, especially when a company’s staff number grows into large, the need for multiple servers emerges. Storage and server are deployed to solve this problem. When it comes to 10GbE SMB storage and server, some essential features like reliability, availability, data protection and cost are needed to be taken into consideration. In today’s market, there are various types of storage and server like dell server for different size businesses.

Network Switches

Whether to build a large or small-to-mid-sized business work, reliable and affordable Ethernet switches are an imperative part. Here are the common three types of network switches.

Categories	Description
Managed Switch	It’s designed to work for large enterprise networks and data centers. Usually managed switch offers many advanced functions like port mirroring, QoS and monitoring management. It is suitable for organizations that require more control for their networks.
Unmanaged Switch	It is a plug-and-play switches without the need of a complicated setup, which is suitable for any business work with low cost.
Smart Switch	It’s also called web smart switch. Smart switch allows users to configure basic settings such as VLAN and QoS. And usually they are found in home networks or small business networks which have no less requirements for smart management.

In recent year years, managed switch has become popular among SMB networks because of its reliable and good performance. Considering the cost, Cisco managed switch or other branded switches are much expensive for SMB networks. While unmanaged switch cannot meet the management requirements. Therefore, managed switch is becoming the optimal choices.

Take FS.com S5800-8TF12S - 10GbE 12-port SFP+ managed switch as an example, it provides high port density with 8-port 1GbE RJ45 and 8-port 1GbE SFP combo and 12-port 10GbE uplink port for hyper-converged infrastructure. With these combo ports, the flexibility and applicability of this fully managed switch have been enhanced greatly, and only one combo port can be used for cooper or fiber links at one time. Supporting advanced features including MLAG, SFLOW, SNMP etc, this 12-port 10GbE SFP+ switch can fulfill the needs for virtualization, cloud services and server-to-server applications, which make it perfect for SMB network building. For more details, you click here: 12-port SFP+ manged switch

10GbE Cabling Choices

Cables, no matter fiber optic cable or copper cable, are the necessary components in network cabling. Fiber optic cable and RJ45 copper cable can work with 10GbE networks. Once the network switch has been chosen, the Ethernet physical interface for fiber and copper cable is also defined. Therefore, the left work is to purchase reliable cables. Here still take FS.com S5800-8TF12S 12-port SFP+ 10GbE managed switch as an example. Just shown as following.

The cabling of these connections are shown below.

Link ①: a 10GBASE-T SFP+ copper transceiver is used to connect the FS S5850-48T4Q 40G switch and S5800-8TF12S 10G switch.
Link ②: in these connections, copper cables can be used for short distance applications (links A). If long distance connections are required, fiber optic cables and SFP optical transceivers can be used in the SFP+ combo (link B). The 1GbE combo count is enough to support various network services flexible.
Link ③: the connections between two switches, SFP+ DACs are an ideal solution for short distances. As for switches that are more than 100 meters away, 10G SFP+ modules are a good choice.

10G NIC Card

NIC card, also called Ethernet network adapter, is used to provide full-time connection for a computer and a network. The price of these cards varies from vendor to vendor. If searching on the Internet, the NICs that is popular among users are Inter NIC, HP NIC, and Mellanox NIC. They are relatively cheap and high performance.

Last Thoughts

It’s not easy to build a SMB network, SMBs planning a switching refresh need to ensure that their new switches can support not only current application requirements as well as future-proofing infrastructures. In a word, the cost and function needed of a managed switch should be considered carefully, and the storage and server should be able to satisfy the data volume.