Dell Networking Х-Series

Dell Networking H-Series - X-series switches for the enterprises of medium and small business.

On May 12, 2015 the Dell company announced release of a line of switches for the enterprises of medium and small business^[1].

The chart of determination of a segment of SMB according to vision of Dell, 2014

Dell determines customers by the "number of employees" parameter. The producer divides a SMB segment for which this line is positioned into the companies of four categories:

• the first category of the companies - staff from 1 to 20, is absent the selected employee responsible for operation and development of IT infrastructure.
• the second category of the companies - staff from 20 to 99 people, is on the staff at least one system administrator.
• the third category of the companies - staff from 100 to 499 employees, is own IT department.
• the fourth category - the state up to 499 people, but more specialized and numerous IT department, perhaps, such company locates more advanced and difficult IT infrastructure.

According to product positioning of Dell, "target audience" of the N-series switches - companies 3 and 4 of category SMB. And for 1 and 2 categories for which the price of N-switches can not be attractive the line of the X-series switches is intended. As "the mixed zone" the producer sees the companies of the 3rd category where both switches of a N-series, and X-series switches can be demanded.

Switches of a X-series are characterized by needs of target audience:

• simplicity in setup and service, speed in deployment and setup. The operating person (administrator) can have basic knowledge and understanding of "networks", but not to have deep knowledge in thin settings, not to have certificates of Cisco, did not take specialized courses, not to have deep skills of work with the command line;

• capacity of switch ports. The more bandwidth – the better. Ports at least should be gigabit. Existence of 10 gigabit connections of servers and DWH is required.

• functionality of a corporate class for low cost. The considered category of customers often imposes requirements for support by switches of the Power over Ethernet and Power over Ethernet Plus standards. Customers pay attention to existence of functions of security, routing between VLAN in the segmented network without additional router.

Line of Dell Networking ò, 2014

Within implementation of the concept, in April, 2015 Dell announced a line of switches under the name "X-series" as a part of which for July 6, 2015 nine models. Eight of them have gigabit ports for connection, one – connection of 10 Gigabits. There are models, both with support of PoE and PoE+, and without it.

From the senior N-series the X-series switches "got" a lifelong guarantee. It the point is that so far the customer uses the switch, technical support of Dell is ready to replace the switch entirely in case of hardware failures. In addition to it, the switches of a X-series delivered to Russia can include the service contract ProSupport Next Business Day for three years within which telephone consultations in Russian (and English) language, reaction of the service center (replacement of component parts or the device) to the next working day.

Main technical characteristics of the Dell X-series switches:

• 4000 VLAN;
• 16K of the MAC addresses;
• 12 x LAG (LACP, Static) with 4 ports in LAG;
• 256 IGMP group;
• IGMP Snooping, Querier, Multicast VLAN;
• STP, RSTP, MSTP, BPDU Guard, Fast Link (Portfast);
• 802.1X, ACL, Dynamic ARP Inspection, DHCP Snooping, Private VLAN (Isolated VLAN), Protected Ports, Port Security;
• QoS (8 queues on X1052, X1052P, X4012 and 4 queues on other models), Voice VLAN;
• Port Mirroring;
• SNMP v1, 2c, 3, is supported by SNMP read/write only on X1008/X1008P. On other models support of SNMP read-only;
• LLDP, TACAS+, RADIUS;
• Automatic update of a configuration and firmware through DHCP/TFTP or USB.

For May 15, 2015 devices are available to the order.

Notes