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.
