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Monday, June 04, 2007
This is a 24 port 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet Layer 3 managed switch with routing capabilities. It supports all Standard Layer 2 features such as VLANs, Link Aggregation, IGMP Snooping, Spanning Tree, etc. Its VLAN feature allows you to create multiple virtual networks on the same switch. However, configuring VLAN is a bit complicated even through the Web browser. The Web browser interface is not informative enough and one has to keep the manual handy for reference, even for small settings.
In its security features, the switch provides traffic control and segmentation, port security, trusted hosts, etc. It also comes with some QoS features such as DiffServ, which help strengthen high-level requirement of traffic management. Eight levels of prioritization are provided for the traffic QoS.
Each of its port supports a cable diagnostic feature that informs the user about cable related problems through LEDs. The switch's two fans keep the device from heating much.
We tested the switch with NetIQ QCheck. It gave an average throughput of 94.118 Mbps, which is good, in an isolated network while transferring 1000 KB of payload from one end to another and in a response time of 1 ms. We, then, overloaded the switch by flooding excessive traffic and tested for throughput. Under these conditions as well, the switch gave an average of 75 Mbps, which means it performs well even under stressed conditions.
Bottom Line: Worth buying for its performance and features, and for max enterprise network reliability.
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