I am looking to put a TAP on my WAN connection as I want visibility into my traffic before any filters/QoS/etc are applied behind my router. I also want to beable to document changes as I start building out my home network and labs.
The connection is a 500/500 Fios connection going between the ONT and my router. Since the connection is below the 1G wirespeed of the line, I've been told that I do not have to worry about latency but I haven't been able to find much information regarding that. A coworker stated that if I use a cat 6 cable that should take care of any worries there.
In addition, in researching a copper tap, most people are saying to just put a managed switch there and SPAN the traffic as that would be cheaper than a dedicated TAP. However, that's not really the case on 1G+ copper connections which can drop a lot of the packets causing high retransmits. Since this will be located within an 18" SMC enclosure, heat and space would also be a concern. While at the moment there's only a single connection after the router (wireless router), eventually there will be 3 total (2 copper & 1 Fiber) with no need for a switch within the enclosure. Since this is for the WAN connection, it's for all traffic going to and from my location.
Are there any recommendations on a good Gigabit Copper Tap? Is it still recommended that I use a small managed switch instead? What switch would you recommend?
The connection is a 500/500 Fios connection going between the ONT and my router. Since the connection is below the 1G wirespeed of the line, I've been told that I do not have to worry about latency but I haven't been able to find much information regarding that. A coworker stated that if I use a cat 6 cable that should take care of any worries there.
In addition, in researching a copper tap, most people are saying to just put a managed switch there and SPAN the traffic as that would be cheaper than a dedicated TAP. However, that's not really the case on 1G+ copper connections which can drop a lot of the packets causing high retransmits. Since this will be located within an 18" SMC enclosure, heat and space would also be a concern. While at the moment there's only a single connection after the router (wireless router), eventually there will be 3 total (2 copper & 1 Fiber) with no need for a switch within the enclosure. Since this is for the WAN connection, it's for all traffic going to and from my location.
Are there any recommendations on a good Gigabit Copper Tap? Is it still recommended that I use a small managed switch instead? What switch would you recommend?