Today I am going on with elimination of illiteracy and I would like to explain you why routers and switches are of high importance in any office and why they should have their own router and switch specialist. I guess you perfectly understand that the main aim of any business network is to enable everyone in a company to use Internet, and to connect to each other, as well as to numerous applications and customers. And now the most interesting part – all these processes are based on two pieces of equipment – switches and routers.

Although they look quite similar, they perform completely different functions in a network:

• We need switches in order to connect numerous devices on the same network in a building. With the help of switches you can easily unite all devices and let them work the way you want. What is more, switches save money and significantly increase productivity.

There are two types of switches: managed (you can access these switches any time you want and make all the necessary changes) and unmanaged (as a rule, they work out of the box and you can’t make any changes).

• And the routers are of great necessity when we want different networks to work together. Only with the help of routers you can be connected to the rest of the world, and protect your information.

You have an opportunity to choose from routers that include different capabilities:

• Virtual Private Network (VPN) that allows your remote employees to access your network;
• IP Phone network that unifies your communications.  

From the first sight, the following devices seem to be cheap, but if you need more than 5 pieces of equipment, it can cost an arm and a leg to you, so you can think of used cisco equipment. It will live long!