NETGEAR, a provider of branded networking solutions, announced the expansion of its ProSafe FSM line of managed, Fast Ethernet switches that provide Small- to Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) with the ability to expand their networks.

 

The new ProSafe FSM Series of Layer 2 Fast Ethernet Switches combine high-performance, easy-to-use manageability and a small 1U form factor with the ability to “stack” switches together for increased capacity. This allows SMBs to increase the size of their network. ProSafe FSM Series is delivered via NETGEAR’s reseller partners.

The three new additions to the NETGEAR ProSafe FSM Series, the FSM726E, FSM7226RS and FSM7250RS, deliver a different level of port density and features to have businesses with more than 200 concurrent users. Regarding, FSM7226RS and FSM7250RS, their stacking capabilities turn each into an expandable platform, as they incorporate true high-speed stacking and not “virtual stacking” or “switch clustering” as with other vendor platforms. The three switches deliver the same high-performance in secure, cost-effective, easy-to-use format to provide increasing amounts of bandwidth.

 

“With much smaller IT budgets than enterprises, SMBs have to make every IT dollar count in planning their network, particularly in this economic environment. That can make it very difficult to lay the foundation for future growth,” said Sanjay Kumar (News - Alert), NETGEAR’s director of SMB Switching Products.

 

“With this augmentation of the FSM series, NETGEAR has eliminated that concern for SMB switching infrastructure. We’ve incorporated enterprise-class features and ‘true’ hardware-based stacking technology that gives SMBs a great network now and enables them to grow their capacity when they need to.”  

The ProSafe FSM726E is a 24-port managed switch that delivers all the advanced features of the RS models without stacking and static routing. They also allow fiber connectivity through two hot-swappable, small form-factor, pluggable (SFP) Gigabit interfaces. The non-blocking design of the switches delivers simultaneous, full wire-speed, low-latency throughput to all ports. Also, their 1U rackmount form factor uses less rack space and provides a lower per-port cost compared to other Fast Ethernet switches.

Robust security features in all these new switches include IEEE (News - Alert) 802.1x port-based authentication, and Access Control List (ACL) for higher security for specific traffic and applications. Secure management of the switches is available through Secure Sockets Layer (SSLv3) for the Web GUI and Secure Shell (SSH) for command-line interface sessions.

 

Multiple new switches and other existing NETGEAR ProSafe managed switches can be managed together with a single IP address, securely via SNMPv3, with NETGEAR’s ProSafe Network Management Software (NMS100). They have Command Line Interface (CLI), for customers to reduce operational expenses.