Introduction

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Switch Architecture
The switch employs a wire-speed, non-blocking switching fabric. This permits
simultaneous wire-speed transport of multiple packets at low latency on all ports.
The switch also features full-duplex capability on all ports, which effectively doubles
the bandwidth of each connection.
The switch uses store-and-forward switching to ensure maximum data integrity. With
store-and-forward switching, the entire packet must be received into a buffer and
checked for validity before being forwarded. This prevents errors from being
propagated throughout the network.
Power-over-Ethernet Capability
The switch’s eight 10/100/1000 Mbps ports support the IEEE 802.3af
Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) standard that enables DC power to be supplied to
attached devices using wires in the connecting Ethernet cable. Any 802.3af
compliant device attached to a port can directly draw power from the switch over the
Ethernet cable without requiring its own separate power source. This capability g ives
network administrators centralized power control for devices suc h as IP phones and
wireless access points, which translates into greater network availability.
For each attached 802.3af-compliant device, the switch automatically senses the
load and dynamically supplies the required power. Independent overload and
short-circuit protection for each port allows the switch to automatically shut down a
port’s power when limits are exceeded.
Port 1 on the switch can provide up to 25 W of power to an attached device at the
standard 48 DC voltage. Ports 2-8 can provide up to 15.4 W of power.
Network Management Options
The switch contains a comprehensive array of LEDs for “at- a-glance” monitoring of
network and port status. They also include a management agent that allows you to
configure or monitor the switch using its embedded management software.
For a detailed description of switch’s advanced features, refer to the Management
Guide.