HP Adds New Core Switch, Software Upgrades To ProCurve Portfolio

The new ProCurve Routing Switch 9400sl provides 320 Gigabit or 32 10-Gigabit ports at wire speed, with 1.28 terabits of switching capacity.

It also supports IPv6, a feature that is becoming increasingly important to customers as they move to meet the requirements of federal regulations, said Kevin Meany, director of technical services at Versatile Communications, a solution provider in Marlborough, Mass.

"They're starting to look at gear now that's capable of doing IPv6," Meany said.

Targeted at large enterprise customers, the new switch is slated to ship in August with a starting price of $310,000.

HP in July plans to roll out a software upgrade to the 5300xl series that adds Internet Control Messaging Protocol (ICMP) throttling, which can help prevent Denial of Service attacks.

With another new software upgrade, the ProCurve Wireless Access Point 420 now supports the IEEE's 802.11i authentication and encryption standard, the compatible WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) 2 as well as backward compatibility with WPA.

The upgrade also adds support for multiple SSIDs (Service Set Identifiers), which adds the ability to assign different authentication, security and VLAN configuration options to users. For example, a business might assign different security rights to employees, managers and guest users, said Darla Sommerville, vice president and general manager, Americas, at ProCurve, Palo Alto, Calif.

"It gives the flexibility to roll out whatever security levels you determine are needed," Sommerville said. "Before, where there was only support for one SSID, the whole device had to provide the same level," she said.

Also in July, HP plans to ship version 2.0 of its ProCurve Manager and ProCurve Manager Plus management software.

Available for free, ProCurve Manager 2.0 adds new discovery features as well as automated registration of ProCurve products. ProCurve Manager Plus 2.0 adds integration with HP's OpenView Network Node Manager as well as the ability to take in and act on SNMP events from third-party software.

For example, when used in conjunction with WLAN management tools from HP ISV partner AirWave, the software can shut down a switch port if it is connected to a rogue access point, said Al Madden, Americas product manager at ProCurve.

ProCurve Manger Plus 2.0 costs $3,199 for fewer than 100 devices or $6,298 for more than 100 devices. The upgrade is scheduled for availability later this summer.