Supermicro SSE-G48-TG4 Layer 3 switch reviewed by Network Computing
05 August 2010 Source: www.networkcomputing.co.uk
In a year that has seen many of the Tier 1 server vendors struggling to make ends meet, Supermicro has been posting some stunning results. This is in no small part thanks to this manufacturer's huge range of aggressively priced servers, workstations and motherboards, but it has even bigger expansion plans in mind, and has now launched its own range of network switches.
For manufacturers that provide such a wide selection of servers and workstations it's a natural progression for them to offer a complete end-to-end networking solution for businesses. Supermicro's opening gambit starts with a pair of Layer 3 switches; a glance at the price of the SSE-G48-TG4 that is under review here shows that it has a very keen focus on value. This is a high-density switch that packs no less than 48 copper Gigabit ports into its 1U form factor. The last four ports are the dual personality variety and this is a common feature on most high-density Gigabit switches. They link up with the quartet of Gigabit SFP (small form-factor pluggable) ports which support longer distance fibre Gigabit connections using standard transceivers. If you use an SFP port, the corresponding copper port will be disabled.
The pair of expansion ports at the rear creases this switch's appeal to mid-sized organisations as they support 10-Gigabit (10GbE) uplink modules. Supermicro currently offers modules with dual copper CX-4 or fibre XFP ports. The CX-4 modules support short-distance cabling of up to twelve metres and are primarily aimed at directly connecting servers with high bandwidth requirements, or aggregating Gigabit links with high-speed switch-to-switch connections. The XFP modules accept industry standard 10GbE transceivers, along with long-range fibre server connections. They can also target applications such as fibre backbones. A recently introduced dual-port SFP+ module will allow use with either copper or fibre cabling...
...The expansion modules can be used to stack multiple switches together in a daisy-chain over 10GbE CX-4 connections. One switch in the stack is configured as the master with all others as slaves. A big advantage of this is that they appear as a single, virtual switch, with all configurations managed by the master. For management you have two options as the switch can be accessed over the CLI (command line interface) via its serial port, or from a standard web browser. There's no need to touch the CLI if you don't want to, as the switch's default VLAN has a management IP address already allowing immediate access...
...We found the web interface to be well designed, offering easy access to the myriad switching and routing features available. A nice touch is the graphic of the switch at the top of the page, so that you can see link lights and speeds of all the connected ports, no matter which function you're currently configuring. For Layer 2 functions you can physically control the status of each port, create up to 1,024 VLANs, enable the dynamic VLAN feature, and enforce 802.1x port based authentication. Jumbo frames and link aggregation are also supported. The switch provides extensive Layer 3 routing functions including RIP, OSPF and VRRP and unusually it also provides its own DHCP server and relay services. QoS and DiffServ support offers up to eight priorities per port with a choice of Weighted-Round-Robin or Strict-Priority scheduling...
...Supermicro is targeting a wide range of applications for this switch including network aggregation and core switching duties. Either way, it has plenty of horsepower to handle them all with its very high backplane capacity of 184Gbps and a forwarding rate of 131Mpps...
...The SSE-G48-TG4 delivers a high Gigabit port density, and it teams this up with a solid range of switching and routing functions. It's easy to deploy and manage, it offers a selection of 10GbE expansion options, and when it is compared with the established names in this market, it looks remarkably good value.
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