In separate incidents this past month, I’ve helped clients troubleshoot network problems that turned out to be due to misconfigured switches. In all cases, the errors turned out to be things that I don’t think should ever have been changed from their default settings. So I thought it might be useful to have a brief discussion about how switches work and what features should or should not be used in normal office environments.

The result of responses from over 300 digital business leaders in North America and EMEA across technology platform providers, financial services, retail, and other industries, our research showed that almost half the surveyed organizations are losing upward of $1M monthly in terms of total economic impact (TEI) due to outages and service degradations.

Network access control (NAC) is a critical component of any organization’s cybersecurity strategy. As companies adopt increasingly flexible work environments and emerging technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), their networks have expanded rapidly. More users, devices, and access points mean more potential vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit. Implementing NAC solutions lets organizations stay securely connected despite relying on a complex, dynamic infrastructure.

The backbone of any business or home setup relies on robust, reliable infrastructure. At the heart of this infrastructure lies a fundamental piece of hardware: the network switch. And beneath that there is a battle: Managed vs unmanaged switch. Whether you’re a seasoned IT pro or someone just dipping their toes into networking, knowing the difference between managed and unmanaged switches can save you a lot of trouble (and money) down the road.

Digitalization has surpassed network modernization, resulting in networks struggling to keep up with daily operations. While many networks can accommodate GenAI and other new technologies, network administrators are responsible for maintaining uninterrupted operations and preventing any errors. For this, they must diligently monitor network performance and related metrics so their networks remain secure and robust yet flexible enough to adapt to the latest technologies.

The AppNeta by Broadcom product team has been focused on enhancing the solution’s capabilities for monitoring setup and administration. This evolution began with the introduction of Monitoring Policies, which provided a framework for setting up monitoring in a scalable, automated fashion. Following this, we added new network rules that made it simple to select and tag the networks that should be monitored.