Review : Layer 2 switch gives Extreme value

Extreme’s Summit X150 switches offer a good range of features for an affordable price

Extreme Networks’ Summit X150 series of 10/100Mbit/s switches represent the vendor’s first foray into the low-end business market. The 1U, Layer 2 switches come in 24- or 48-port versions, with Power over Ethernet available as an option on both.
We reviewed the 24-port X150-24p model with IEEE 802.3af PoE giving 15.4W to all ports. X150 models can be upgraded with either an internal redundant power supply unit ­ the EPS 160 ­ or an external one ­ the EPS-500 ­ but there is no capacity to add 10 Gigabit Ethernet capability.

Besides its 10/100Mbit/s ports, the X150-24p has two auto negotiating 10/100/1000Base-T copper ports and two small form factor (SFP) Gigabit Ethernet optical ports. Both 10/100 and gigabit SFPs can be used with the X150. There is also a single 10/100Mbit/s out-of-band management port at the rear and an RS-232 console connection at the front.

For network management, users can choose from the ExtremeXOS command line interface (CLI), SNMP, or the browser-based ExtremeXOS ScreenPlay interface.
We set up the switch by connecting an RS-232 cable to our Elonex Piranha Pro notebook running Windows 2000 Professional and set the management virtual LAN (VLAN) to a 192.168.1.0 subnet address using the CLI. After this we could connect an RJ-45 cable to the management port at the rear of the X150-24p and use the ScreenPlay GUI to further configure the system. ScreenPlay is easy to navigate and users can also check environmental parameters, such as the temperature of the switch and the state of the fans.

We were able to create VLANs for traffic specific to our AirTight Networks Wi-Fi sensor network and another specifically to allow for voice over IP calls. We could also prioritise voice traffic by setting quality of service (QoS) at a higher level than for normal traffic. If more than 100Mbit/s of bandwidth is needed, users can also use 802.3ad link aggregation to combine up to eight ports on a single logical connection.

The X150 is a Layer 2 edge switch but it can also deal with some Layer 3 and 4 information, although it cannot perform IP routing using protocols like RIP or OSPF.
It also has a comprehensive feature set for a Layer 2 switch, with 802.1x, web or MAC-based authentication, protocol anomaly detection and denial of service protection.