Physical Switch vs Virtual Switch: Which is the best choice?

Physical Switch vs Virtual Switch

A good and reliable network can help you in running a business operation seamlessly. That is the reason why a professionally reliable network always come with certain vital features that ensure unflinching results as per the given command. One such trusted feature is the network switch.

A network switch helps in controlling and guiding the flow of the network traffic and currently accessible in two distinctive forms, i.e. physical switches and virtual switches.

 Introduction

Here, we are going to shed some light over the physical switch vs virtual switch distinction and try to find out which can turn out to be the finest choice for your business needs among the two. First and foremost, let us have a glance over what both the varieties of switches are all about.

A physical switch is basically a tangible device that one can touch and feel, guiding the flow of the network traffic by basically forwarding the data packets to the designated device that leads to a well enabled range of networking functions in exchange. Physical Network switch is an individual entity which connects to physical devices like router, firewall, Physical switch, Server etc.

On the other hand, virtual switches function as intangible software that enable the network components, such as virtual machines to interact with each other. They are identical to the physical switches over one aspect that they function in an isolated manner without sharing the resources with one another. Virtual switches are used for connecting Virtual environments (VMs) to other VMs and also establish connections with physical networks.

Physical Switch vs Virtual Switch:

The following table would help you define the line of difference between the physical and virtual switches and reach onto to the inference of making the finest choice-

Conclusion

It is utterly true that both physical and virtual switches have their own merits and demerits. So in order to make a prudent physical switch vs virtual switch decision, it is suggestive to evaluate the system configuration and whether it is conducive merely to hardware switch terminals or could be expanded to virtual switch contours. If you are seeking better bandwidth capacity and would like to assess each data packet before passing them through the terminal then virtual switches are recommend. Rest of the aspects can function seamlessly in either case.

Related – VMware Distributed Switch vs Standard Switch