feed Under 
Tags: 
hose_b asked:
I am on a corporate LAN where the desktops are all connected to a central Cisco 4507R switch. We only have one drop per cube. Some people want more drops so they bring in their little Netgear or Linksys swiches from Best Buy and connect them to their corporate LAN port.
I am on a corporate LAN where the desktops are all connected to a central Cisco 4507R switch. We only have one drop per cube. Some people want more drops so they bring in their little Netgear or Linksys swiches from Best Buy and connect them to their corporate LAN port.
What are the negatives of doing this? I’ld be interested in personal experiences and horror stories if anyone has any.
Analyze network connection
Someone is paying for each second of computer time.
Lets assume that your neighbor hooks into yourelectric line and doesn’t pay you for it? Wouldn’t you get pretty tight about that?
None really, it just reduces each units speed per machine slightly.
Your network is mapped out to it’s central switch and will run faster this way. Small personal switches start to confuse and clog the network, not to mention use up bandwidth. For example you have 100 mbps on your one drop. Every time you split this with a switch you use up the available bandwidth. You may not care if your computer runs a little slower, but if you use a digital phone network you may start seeing some differences in your phone quality as you start putting more devices on this switch. You may get echoes in your phone conversation or possibly even delays between each person talking.
The negatives are security, management of the LAN and attached devices, addressing space being eaten up by unauthorized devices, changing the actual topology. Depending upon what type of business you are in there may be certain regulations that doing this may violate as well. Bandwidth per port to the desktop is shared, depending upon the switch you are using then you possibly create a collision domain where none should exist within a decently planned network. Basically you are working around either a wiring issue, LAN design issue, or just circumventing the process of getting connectivity. If no one has an issue, then why not I guess. From a professional standpoint this could be a firing offense and really screws up LAN design and support (which in this case there does not appear to be much at a competent level).