ZyXEL Communications GS-2724, User Manual

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GS-2724 User’s Guide
33
C
H A P T E R
1
Getting to Know Your Switch
This chapter introduces the main features and applications of the Switch.
1.1 Introduction
Your Switch is a stand-alone layer-3 Gigabit Ethernet switch. By integrating router functions,
the Switch performs wire-speed layer-3 routing in addition to layer-2 switching. The Switch
has 20 Gigabit Ethernet ports and 4 GbE dual personality interfaces for uplink. A dual
personality interface includes one Gigabit port and one slot for mini-GBIC transceiver (SFP
module) with one port active at a time.
With its built-in web configurator, managing and configuring the Switch is easy. In addition,
the Switch can also be managed via Telnet, any terminal emulator program on the console
port, or third-party SNMP management.
See
Appendix A on page 305 for a full list of software features available on the Switch.
1.1.1 Backbone Application
The Switch is an ideal solution for small networks where rapid growth can be expected in the
near future. The Switch can be used standalone for a group of heavy traffic users. You can
connect computers and servers directly to the Switch’s port or connect other switches to the
Switch.
In this example, all computers can share high-speed applications on the server. To expand the
network, simply add more networking devices such as switches, routers, computers, print
servers etc.
Figure 1 Backbone Application