Dax’ Manageable Switch 

This is the latest 10/100 Mbps 24-port manageable switch from Dax Networks. All ports support auto-negotiation of connection speed and full duplex operation. It has a Web-based management interface, making it easy to configure from anywhere on your LAN. It also supports port trunking, allowing you to group multiple ports into a single trunk having a maximum bandwidth of 1600 Mbps. This is useful when cascading multiple switches. It also supports the Spanning Tree protocol to detect and disable network loops 

and provide backup links between multiple switches, bridges and routers. The switch also supports VLANs, allowing you to create up to 256 groups. This can be useful in breaking up the network into smaller and more manageable logical segments. 

The switch also supports SNMP and RMON for management. It supports IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol) snooping, which allows it to forward multicast traffic intelligently on the switch. Based on IGMP query reports, the switch forwards traffic to the ports requesting similar multicast traffic. This prevents broadcasting of multicast traffic to all ports, thereby improving network performance. You can make any port as a mirror port, which would be able to see the traffic flowing to other ports. This is helpful in analyzing network traffic. 

The switch is quite easy to set up, and you can manage it through an RS232 console or Telnet. On the front panel, it has an extensive array of LEDs for indicating network collisions, activity, full duplex or 100 Mbps operation. Finally, there are two slots for adding Gigabit and fiber modules.

The Bottom Line. Overall, a good choice for medium sized networks. 

Sanjay Majumder at PCQ Labs