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By:
Luckee
Company:
AOpen
Date
June 28, 2001
In
the world of gaming networking, it is almost
paramount to have a switch running in the
background of your network. Instead of your
standard cheepie hub, this will create a lag
free environment. This is the especially
crucial if you plan to have a LAN party,
where you have multiple computers accessing
the server and where lag-less sections is a
must.
You
must be wondering what the difference is
between a switch and a standard hub, right?
Here is an explanation: Switches move data
between network nodes without congestion.
Each node attached to a switch has an open
10- or 100-Mbs channel. By contrast, hubs
share a single channel among all ports using
Ethernet's contention scheme. A hub works
fine until net traffic picks up or the
amount of users increases to 16 clients or
more. Applications
that stream data raise the contention
activity in hubs. The LAN doesn't choke
because of throughput limitations; it chokes
because of contention for access. Adding a
switch eliminates contention thus making for
a low ping gaming environment.
Today
we are taking a look the AOW-224 in yet
another line of quality and affordable
products from AOpen. Over the last year many
companies have jumped on the
SOHO
technology bandwagon to find it is a tough
race in comparing who has the best switch
for your money.
Let’s see if the AOW-224 has
the makings of being one of the best on the
market today.
Switching
Technology
Switching
is a cost-effective way of increasing the
total network capacity available to users on
a local area network. A switch increases
capacity and decreases network loading by
dividing a local area network into different
segments, which won’t compete with each
other for network transmission capacity. The
switch acts as a high-speed selective bridge
between the individual segments. Without
interfering with any other segments, it
automatically forwards traffic that needs to
go from one segment to another. By doing
this, the total network capacity is
multiplied, while still maintaining the same
network.
For
Fast Ethernet networks, a switch is an
effective way of eliminating problems of
chaining hubs beyond the “two-repeater
limit.” A switch can be used to split
parts of the network into different
collision domains, making it possible to
expand your Fast Ethernet network beyond the
205-meter network diameter limit for
100BASE-TX networks. Switches are also ideal
for bridging between the existing 10Mbps
networks and the new 100Mbps networks.
Today switches are an ideal solution
to most kinds of local area network
congestion problems.
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Key
Features
-
24
ports NWay 10M/100M
auto-detect
Ethernet/Fast Ethernet
SWITCH
-
Full/Half
duplex for each port
-
Operating
at maximum packet
filtering and
forwarding rate
-
Supports
for store-and-forward
of packet switching
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Supports
an Extra MDI-II
connector for easy
expansion
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1.5
Mbytes buffer memory
for AOW-224
-
Address
table up to 24K MAC
address entries for
AOW-224
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Specifications
-
Standard:
-
IEEE 802.3 10BASE-T
Ethernet
- IEEE 802.3u
100BASE-TX Fast
Ethernet
- ANSI/IEEE 802.3u
NWay auto-negotiation
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Topology:
-
Star
-
Network
Media:
-
10BASE-T: UTP Cat.
3,4,5 (100m)
- 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX:
EIA/TIA-568 100-ohm
screened twisted-pair
(STP) (100m)
- 100BASE-TX: UTP
Cat.5 (100m)
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Filtering
Address Table:
-
AOW-224: 24K MAC
address entries per
device
Packet
Filtering Rates:
- 10BASE-T:
14,880 pps per port
(half-duplex)
- 100BASE-TX,
100BASE-FX: 148,800
pps per port
(half-duplex)
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MAC
Address Learning:
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Automatic update
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RAM
Buffer:
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AOW-224: 1.5MB per
device
Network Data
Transfer Rate:
- ETHERNET:
10Mbps (Half Duplex),
20Mbps (Full Duplex)
- FAST ETHERNET:
100Mbps (Half Duplex),
200Mbps (Full Duplex)
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Protocol:
-
CSMA/CD
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LED
Report:
-
Power, 10/100M
Link/Activity,
Collision/Full-Duplex
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Transmission
Method:
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Store-and-Forward
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Packet
Forwarding Rates:
-
10BASE-T: 14,880 pps
per port (half-duplex)
-
100BASE-TX/100BASE-FX:
148,800 pps per port
(half-duplex)
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Number
of ports:
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AOW-216: 10/100Mbps
NWay port x 16
- AOW-224: 10/100Mbps
NWay port x 24
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Number
of MDI-II Uplink Port:
-
MDI-II Uplink Port X 1
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Power
Supply:
-
Internal universal
power adapter
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Temperature:
-
Operating : 0 -- 40°C
- Storage : 20 -- 70°C
-
Humidity:
-
Operating : 10% -- 90%
RH
- Storage : 5% -- 90%
RH
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Dimensions:
-
440 x 200 x 44 mm
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Emission:
-
FCC Class 1
- CE Mark
- VCCI-I
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Installation
and Testing
Installation
was a synch, it was pretty straight forward.
I took it out of the box and plugged it in.
I located the uplink and plugged in the
network’s internet connection.
This was pretty fun to say the least,
as I was hooking it up to three computers.
I
decided to test the AOW-224 switch by hooking
it up to a network that had a connection
speed upward of a T3 line. Then I started
a few game servers to see how this would
handle multiple connections and the lag
factor. I started a Firearms server and a
Quake 3 Team Arena server. I played
for about an hour on the Quake server, which
had 32 people in it, and an average ping
time of 85-90. Everything went fine, with
little or no lag on this server. Next I
jumped on the other server running
Firearms that had about 24 people in it with
an average ping time around the same 80-95.
The outcome was the same as the other
server, pretty smooth play.
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The
second test was to see how it could transfer
files over our VPN network with this switch
versus your standard hub. We had backed up
about 3 gigs of data on our main server
and decided to transfer it to a smaller
server. With a hub we could transfer the
data around 600k / second, with the AOW-224
we could transfer that same data at about 1
Meg + / second.
Conclusion
We
have been very impressed with the AOW-224.
AOpen has proven once again that they
have what it takes to compete with the best.
If you’re in the business of home
networking or running game servers, you must
have the right equipment in order to limit
the amount of lag that would be evident if you
were networking with a hub.
And if you’re in the market to buy
a switch then this is the switch for you.
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