D-Link's xStack DGS-3427 is a Layer 3 managed Ethernet switch aimed at companies looking to connect branch office LANs into a central network backbone, and who may require fibre-optic Gigabit or 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplink options to do it.

The unit features 24 auto-sensing 10/100/1000Mbit/s Ethernet ports, and up to 12 units totalling 288 Gigabit ports can be configured for a stack in a ring topology. Switches can also be configured as a virtual stack using standard network cabling. D-Link promises stacking in a star configuration to be available in a future firmware upgrade.

Alongside the 24 Gigabit ports, the switch features four small form factor ports that can be used to accommodate fibre-optic transceivers. These include 1000Base-LX, 1000Base-SX, 1000Base-LH and 1000Base-ZX transceivers, all of which are supplied by D-Link at an extra charge.

As well as these, the rear of the switch has three apertures able to accommodate single-port copper-based 10GbE XFP or 10GBase-CX4 modules for 10Gbit/s uplink bandwidth. To reinforce its suitability for mission-critical environments, D-Link has also included a module for a redundant power supply.

The 1U switch can be rack or surface mounted, but despite being designed for branch offices, the noisy fan makes it best suited for installation in a server room.
Also provided are serial and power cables, a quick installation guide and a driver CD containing a 254-page user manual in PDF format. This also holds a couple of add-in software modules for D-View 5.1, D-Link’s own network management suite, which has to be registered online before you can activate it, and HP’s OpenView.

We could not connect to the switch’s default IP address, but were quickly able to do so once we reassigned the IP address by using telnet to access the command line interface. Once this was done, it was just a case of typing the address into the browser and inputting the username and password to begin managing the switch. The Web Manager interface is basic but easy to use.

The DGS-3427 provides the option of configuring L2/L3/L4 multi-layer access control lists and 802.1x user authentication via Terminal Access Controller Access Control System (Tacacs+) and Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (Radius) servers. Layer 3 IPv4/v6 static routing and IPv6 tunnelling capabilities can be configured to improve network performance and security, and D-Link has included an automated network security health check mechanism, though this works only in conjunction with the manufacturer’s NetDefend firewall software if installed.

The DGS-3427 provides extensive VLAN support, and quality of service parameters can be defined to provide transmission priority to converged applications.