LevelOne GEP-0950 Manual - Page 12

2-1-2. Cabling Requirements To help ensure a successful installation and keep the network performance good, please take a care on the cabling requirement. Cables with worse specification will render the LAN to work poorly. 2-1-2-1. Cabling Requirements for TP Ports  For Fast Ethernet TP network connection  The grade of the cable must be Cat. 5 or Cat. 5e with a maximum length of 100 meters.  Gigabit Ethernet TP network connection  The grade of the cable must be Cat. 5 or Cat. 5e with a maximum length of 100 meters. Cat. 5e is recommended. 2-1-2-2. Switch Cascading in Topology • Typical Network Topology in Deployment A hierarchical network with minimum levels of switch may reduce the timing delay between server and client station. Basically, with this approach, it will minimize the number of switches in any one path; will lower the possibility of network loop and will improve network efficiency. If more than two switches are connected in the same network, select one switch as Level 1 switch and connect all other switches to it at Level 2. Server/Host is recommended to connect to the Level 1 switch. This is general if no VLAN or other special requirements are applied. Case1: All switch ports are in the same local area network. Every port can access each other If VLAN is enabled and configured, each node in the network that can communicate each other directly is bounded in the same VLAN area. Here VLAN area is defined by what VLAN you are using. The switch supports both port-based VLAN and tag-based VLAN. They are different in practical deployment, especially in physical location. The following diagram shows how it works and what the difference they are. 6