IP Communications

Foundry Networks (News - Alert) has announced the introduction of FastIron WS Series of one rack unit (1RU) fixed form factor Layer 2/3 switches. It will be available in 8 models including Power over Ethernet (PoE) models and can also be upgraded to Layer 3 routing making the FastIron WS (FWS) Series a complete family of compact convergence-ready Layer 2/3 switches.

 

The FastIron WS Series adds to the company’s intelligent edge product family designed specially for SMBs, branch offices and large distributed enterprises. The FastIron switches are available as 24- and 48-port 10/100 or 10/100/1000 Mbps models. These can be ordered with or without PoE. The switches can support the IEEE (News - Alert) 802.3af standard for delivering 12.95 watts of power to an Ethernet endpoint.

 

PoE is a standards-based method used widely for powering network endpoints like VoIP equipment, video surveillance cameras and wireless LAN access points.

 

The FastIron switches are most suitable in cases where there are noise, space and power constraints. It consumes less power and is a power efficient family of Layer 2/3 edge switches. With the FastIron switches, energy costs can be minimized with better functionality and performance. The compact size of 4.3cm x 44 cm x 35 cm occupies less space and the low noise level of the fan is useful in places where there should be low ambient noise.

 

The switches are built on a wire-speed architecture and offer support to embedded security and advanced Layer 2 networking services. An upgrade option for edge Layer 3 routing (RIP and OSPF) is provided for greater flexibility. This makes it an optimum network access solution for enterprises and service provider customers.

 

For enterprises, FastIron WS Series offers network access for desktops, servers, workstations, wireless LAN networks and other Ethernet connected endpoints. Support for IEEE 802.1ab LLDP and ANSI TIA (News - Alert) 1057 LLDP-MED simplifies operations in VoIP environments. It is also available with IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet for powering next-generation IP devices like VoIP handsets, wireless LAN access points, and IP video cameras.

 

The FastIron WS Series is used in metro areas featuring Foundry’s Metro Ring Protocol (MRP) for building resilient ring-based topologies, VLAN stacking and advanced multicast capabilities including Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) and MLD v1/v2 snooping for controlling multicast traffic in content distribution applications.

 

The switches support a suite of security features like DHCP snooping and dynamic ARP inspection to prevent address spoofing and man-in-the-middle attacks, rate limiting, protection against TCP and ICMP denial of service (DoS) attacks, and standards-based network access control (NAC) with multi-endpoint authentication. In addition, the spanning tree Root Guard and BPDU guard, protect network topology from protocol-level attacks.

 

Foundry Networks provides enterprise and service provider switching, routing, security and Web traffic management solutions. It also provides wireless and access points, metro and core routers. The company caters to ISPs, metro service providers, and enterprises, including e-commerce sites, universities, entertainment, healthcare, government, financial and manufacturing companies.