Managed ethernet switches

I see many references to using managed switches in lieu of unmanaged switches and hubs. My question is, what settings in particular are you using? Does it vary by PLC brand or do most all PLCs in general benefit for example when IGMP snooping is disabled?

Shawn

In most cases, if your switches all use IGMP Snooping, you will not need managed switches as "IGMP Snooping" does a pretty good job of managing their ports. It is when one has a lot of devices that use broadcasting which can not be turned off, like many wireless devices, that managed switches are needed. Or where there is not a proper router segregating work cells from each other and from the plant intranet.
If you still have hubs, you should retire them, I keep one for troubleshooting only, but rarely use it.

Where I work we are mostly going with managed Hirshmann switches. Another important thing to check is that you have full duplex capability on all ports. Other things needed are port mirroring and QoS (Quality of Service).

I take it that the hub is used with applications like Wireshark.