Optical transceivers and switches are very important in Ethernet transmission, but they are different in function and application. So, what is the difference between a optical transceiver and a switch? This article explains in detail for you.

What is the main difference between a optical transceiver and a switch?
Optical fiber transceiver is a very cost-effective and flexible device. The common use is to convert the electrical signal in the twisted pair into an optical signal. It is generally used when the Ethernet copper cable cannot be covered and the optical fiber must be used to extend the transmission distance. In the actual network environment, it also played a huge role in helping to connect the last mile of the optical fiber line to the metropolitan area network and the outer network. A switch is a network device used to forward electrical (optical) signals. It plays a core role in the mutual communication between wired network devices (such as computers, printers, computers, etc.). It is usually connected to a router so that you can pass optical Cat accesses the network.

Transmission rate
At present, optical transceivers can be divided into 100M optical transceivers, Gigabit optical transceivers and 10G optical transceivers. Among them, the most common are 100M and Gigabit optical transceivers, which are economical and efficient solutions in home and small and medium-sized enterprise networks. Network switches include 1G, 10G, 25G, 100G and 400G switches. Taking large data center networks as an example, 1G/10G/25G switches are mainly used in the access layer or as ToR switches, while 40G/100G/400G switches are mostly used as core or Backbone switch.

Installation difficulty
Fiber optic transceivers are relatively simple network hardware devices with fewer interfaces than switches, so their wiring and connections are relatively simple. They can be used alone or installed on a rack. Since the optical fiber transceiver is a plug-and-play device, its installation steps are also very simple: just insert the corresponding copper cable and fiber jumper into the corresponding electrical and optical ports, and then connect the copper cable and optical fiber to the network device Both ends are fine.

The network switch can be used alone in a home network or small office, or it can be installed on a rack in a large data center network. Generally, you need to insert the module into the corresponding port, and then use the corresponding network cable or optical fiber jumper to connect to the computer or other network equipment. In a high-density cabling environment, patch panels, fiber optic boxes, and cable management tools need to be used to manage cables and simplify wiring. For managed network switches, it needs to be equipped with some advanced functions, such as SNMP, VLAN, IGMP and other functions.

Function configuration
Electrical-to-optical (optical-to-electricity) and optical-to-optical fiber optic transceivers are two common types. The former can convert electrical signals into optical signals to realize the connection of devices based on copper cabling to extend the transmission distance; while the latter can Realize single-multimode conversion, single-dual fiber conversion and wavelength conversion (mainly converting conventional wavelengths of 1310nm and 1550nm into WDM wavelengths).

Compared with the optical transceiver, the function of the switch is much more complicated, which is determined by its network operating system. According to the network layer, they can be divided into layer 2, layer 3, and layer 4 switches. Normally, the layer 2 switch is the basic switch used to transmit data and perform error checking on each frame sent and received. Layer 3 and Layer 4 switches have routing functions, which can actively send data packets to the destination in the best way. In addition, they also have some advanced functions, such as MLAG, STP, VXLAN, etc.