"Cisco Business Basics: How to Connect an Unmanaged Switch to Your Small Business or Home Office"
A business can’t run smoothly without the right tools in place — the right team, the right location and, perhaps most importantly, the right technology. But simply having networking equipment won’t make your operations fire on all cylinders — you’ll need to master the art of the setup.
Thankfully the process for setting up an unmanaged switch like the ones offered in the Cisco Business 110 Series isn’t complicated. In fact, there are no configurations necessary. It’s about as plug and play as you can get.
Unboxing your switch
Let’s start at the very beginning. When it comes to unboxing your Cisco unmanaged switch, what can you expect to find? Beyond the switch itself, you’ll find a quick-start guide, a power cable and, if there are 16 or more ports on your selected model, a mounting kit.Now that you’ve got a handle on what the LEDs mean, how do you know the switch is working properly?
Where to put your switch
When it comes to the placement of your unmanaged switch, if the model you selected comes with 8 or less ports, you can simply place the unmanaged switch somewhere stable, like a desk. If you have 16 or more ports on your unmanaged switch, the mounting kit allows you to rack mount the switch. To properly secure it in a cabinet or other storage unit check out the online mounting guide at cisco.com/go/cbs110mounting.Once you’ve determined the spot your switch will call home, it’s as simple as plugging it in! You can now use it as a standalone network and begin plugging devices in or take it a step further and add it to your existing network. To do this you just need to establish a connection to your current network, typically this is done from your router by connecting an ethernet cable to the LAN port and plugging the other end into any port on the switch you choose. Once you’ve powered on your switch and begun plugging devices into the ports, you will see various LED lights. what do these different colored LED lights represent?
What do the status lights mean
The green, lower-left LED, unsurprisingly, indicates the power status of the switch. If the light is on, the switch has power, if it is off it does not. The yellow LED directly above the power one is only present on switches with Power Over Ethernet (PoE) capabilities, including the 8PP-D, 16PP, and 24PP models. In these models, some—not all—of the ports feature PoE capabilities. When on, this LED indicates that the switch is at Max PoE, meaning 80% or more of the power budget is being used. The ports which can be used for PoE are marked here in yellow.The LINK/ACT LEDs are located at the upper left corners of each port. A flashing green indicates linking is in progress. If the green light is steady, a successful link has been established. A steady amber light here means that the cable has errors — if the amber light begins to flash, a loop has been detected. The purpose of the LED on the upper right depends on the model and port. For PoE switches and on the PoE ports, the light is on when a device is connected and is being supplied with power. For ports that do not have PoE the LED indicates Gigabit Speed. It turns on when 1000 megabits per second is achieved.
How to test connectivity
To test connectivity, perform a ping test. On a Windows computer, in the search box enter “cmd” and open the command prompt. Enter ping and the IP address of the destination. The command sends a ping request from one device to another. When a device receives a “reply”, that means connectivity is confirmed. The devices can “talk to each other”. For example, if you’ve got two desktop computers connected to switch ports and you have set static IP addresses on both devices in the same subnet, they should be able to connect and ping each other seamlessly. You can systematically confirm a port’s functionality by plugging a device into each using this same static IP method.This ping test can tell you how successfully the switch is functioning, whether there are any round-trip delays in communication and the level of packet loss.
Start networking today
So what’s next? You’ve got your Cisco unmanaged switch unboxed, you’ve set it up, and you’ve walked through any potential troubleshooting areas. The beauty of the simplicity of these devices is… that’s essentially it! You can go about the day-to-day of your small business knowing you have the right technology and networking tools in place to operate like a champ.Thanks for watching this edition of Cisco Business Basics. Happy networking, friends.