Industry’s first 28-port 10-gigabit smart managed switch?  

NETGEAR is extending its leadership in 10-Gigabit Copper (10GBASE-T) switching solutions with the introduction of the ProSAFE® 28-port 10-Gigabit Smart Managed Switch (XS728T) (www.netgear.co.uk/XS728T). The powerful new ProSAFE XS728T is the industry's first and only 28-port (24 copper, 4 SFP+) 10-Gigabit Smart Managed Switch purposely designed for small to mid-sized organisations (SMBs) with 10GBASE-T connectivity and Advanced L2+/Layer 3 Lite features. The XS728T delivers unprecedented 10-Gigabit bandwidth at an affordable cost for small to mid-sized organisations such as businesses, government agencies, and educational facilities. It is backed by the industry-leading NETGEAR Lifetime Hardware Warranty and customer support* coverage.

NETGEAR holds the top position in worldwide market share for web-managed fixed configuration Ethernet switching in both units and revenue, according to IHS Infonetics in its Ethernet Switches Market Share and Forecasts (1Q15 Edition, June 2015). The company offers a complete portfolio of 10-Gigabit switch solutions, spanning small server clusters to network aggregation, and from workgroup labs to network backbones. NETGEAR is the only switching vendor to offer two models of Smart Managed 10GBASE-T switches with different port density options, as the new XS728T joins the existing ProSAFE 12-port 10-Gigabit Smart Switch (XS712T) that was launched with other NETGEAR first-to-market 10GBASE-T Copper switches in early 2013.

At that time, NETGEAR became the first networking solutions provider to bring more affordable 10GBASE-T solutions to user networks. NETGEAR 10-Gigabit switch solutions combine the latest advances in hardware and software engineering for higher availability, lower latency and power consumption, and stronger security. They alleviate performance bottlenecks and enable easier and smoother deployment of services on the same converged platform, in spite of unpredictable bandwidth demands relating to new technologies such as virtualisation, cloud-based services, and applications such as VoIP, video streaming and IP surveillance.

“Our 10GBASE-T Copper switching portfolio offers our channel partners the chance to ride the next wave in networking as 10GBASE-T provides growing networks a migration path to newer technologies without sacrificing current hardware investments,” said Bradley Verona, the senior product line manager for Volume Switches in the NETGEAR Commercial Business Unit. “10-Gigabit switching solutions have historically been completely fibre-based and thus cost-prohibitive for SMBs. With our powerful new ProSAFE XS728T, NETGEAR continues to deliver the market-leading capabilities and product attributes that SMBs have come to expect in the most comprehensive, cost-effective switching solutions on the market.”

With its 24 10-Gigabit Copper ports and 4 additional dedicated SFP+ ports for 10G fibre links, the ProSAFE XS728T Smart Managed Switch is purposely designed as a cost-effective way to provide 10G connections to 10G-capable servers and Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems. It can be used at the centre of a small business network or as an aggregation or access switch in a larger organisation including workgroup access, connecting to a 10-Gigabit NETGEAR ProSAFE Fully Managed Switch (M6100/M7100/M7300) (www.netgear.co.uk/business/products/switches/managed) on one end and extending the 10G connections to the network edge.

Key Features of the ProSAFE 28-port 10-Gigabit Smart Managed Switch (XS728T)
With the growth of virtualisation, cloud-based services and applications like VoIP, video streaming and IP surveillance, SMB networks need to extend beyond simple reliability to higher speed and performance. ProSAFE 10-Gigabit Smart Managed Switches from NETGEAR, including the new XS728T, present the right solution for this requirement, delivering unprecedented non-blocking 10-Gigabit bandwidth at an affordable cost.

In addition to the essential set of network features that comes in all NETGEAR Smart Managed Switches, the ProSAFE XS728T provides comprehensive L2+/Layer 3 Lite features in order to meet customers’ current and future needs on virtualisation, converged networks, and mobility. Some of the main features include:
· Advanced VLAN features such as Protocol-based VLAN, MAC-based VLAN and 802.1x Guest VLAN
· Advanced QoS (Quality of Service) with L2/L3/L4 awareness and 8 priority queues including Q-in-Q
· Static Routing (both IPv4 and IPv6)
· Private VLAN
· Dynamic VLAN assignment
· IGMP and MLD snooping
· Advanced Security
· IPv6 support for management, QoS and ACL
· Easy-to-use web-based management GUI or PC-based Smart Control Centre application for multi-switch deployment

“The ProSAFE XS728T Gigabit Smart Managed Switch worked flawlessly in our test,” said John Paul Szkudlpaski, head of IT services for Birkenhead Sixth Form College in Claughton Village, Prenton, Wirral, U.K. “It went straight in as a production switch and my users didn’t even know it was a beta switch. It ran our mission critical Hyper-V stack, in place of a fully managed switch.”