Juniper Networks in late February began shipping the EX2200 series, a new line of Gigabit Ethernet switches designed for set-and-forget scenarios such as campus networks, small businesses and branch offices. Available in 24- or 48-port densities with or without Power over Ethernet, the fixed-configuration Layer 2 switches also offer some basic Layer 3 capabilities generally found on more expensive devices. List pricing starts at $1,995.
All units in the series also include auto-sensing on all ports as well as four fiber uplink ports with an optional small form-factor pluggable (SFP) transceiver. The CRN Test Center looked at the EX2200 24T, a 24-port, non-powered switch with an overall throughput rating of 42 Gbps. Street pricing on the unit can be found in the $1,700 range"which is more than reasonable given how it performs.
In short, the unit delivered. The sturdy, 1U box performed at wire speed regardless of what testers threw at it. After bombarding one-third of its ports with IxChariot's Ultra High Performance Throughput test script, each maintained an average transfer rate of 949 Mbps. When half the ports were then switched to Web page transfers, the transaction rate averaged 286 transactions per second while the sustained throughput dropped to about 280 MBps on those ports. Not too shabby considering the relatively large HTML file size of 120K.
Management of the EX series can be through either out-of-band (rear) serial or Ethernet ports or in-band through the front door. If you choose the serial entry point, you'll be accessing Juniper's Junos embedded operating system through a command line. Though well documented, you won't be needing this much since security and most other desired capabilities and settings are enabled by default. The EX2200 even sets up egress queues for network control, assured forwarding, expedited forwarding, and best effort, and can classify traffic based on its 802.1p (class of service) field, MAC or IP address or other parameters, but you'll have to set that up manually along with VLANs (up to 1024) and other custom settings. Juniper also provides J-Web for browser-based access.
The non-PoE EX2200 is rated to consume a maximum of 50 watts, or about 2 watts per port. In tests, the unit required about 18 watts to power up and settled in at 14 before activating its ports. Once the nine tested ports were fully lit up, wattage jumped to 24, still within limits. The ARM-based switch remained at a comfortable 78 degrees except at its rear fan port, where it hovered at 82. It's a relatively quiet unit when its fans are running at normal speed, which is most of the time.
Layer 3 capabilities such as static and dynamic (RIP) routing are standard, and license extensions reportedly available sometime in the future will afford Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Internet routing, as well as Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP v1/v2/v3), and Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM), according to the company. At 10 inches deep, the EX2200 would fit as comfortably on a table or equipment shelf as mounted on a rack.
BACKTALK: Get in touch with Eddie Correia via e-mail at edward.correia@ec.ubm.com.
