New XGS2220 switches are amongst our most versatile yet
With fantastic options for fibre connections and uplinks, and options that provide an extensive PoE budget, the XGS2220 is one of Zyxel’s most versatile series of switches yet, says Luke Harley, EMEA market development manager.
In my most recent blog, I talked about how the enormous changes that have taken place in the demands on networks and how at Zyxel, we have been adapting our range of switches to meet changing needs across the infrastructure.
In that article I noted that what organisations needed from network switches had changed quite fundamentally. Today, instead of just performing the simple function of being the junction between connected devices and the network, a switch might have to also provide power for PoE devices, or be adapted for video traffic.
When I used this example, I was thinking of one family of switches that we’ve recently launched in Europe – the XGS2220. These switches are amongst the most versatile we’ve produced to date.
Ideal for AV aggregation
There are six models in the range offering different configurations that support high budget PoE and fibre connectivity. With as many as four 10 gigabit uplinks ports and two multi-gigabit ports available, the XGS2220 is an ideal aggregation switch for applications that need to carry a lot of bandwidth onto the network, such as high-quality conferencing and collaboration or video streaming.
The switch also has a Networked AV mode and configuration wizard. This enables the switch settings to be tuned for multicast audiovisual applications that might be used in a hotel, university campus, or sports arena, for example.
Amazing PoE support is also an outstanding feature. As many as 48 devices with a combined PoE budget of 960W can be supported on the XGS2220 series, making them perfect for extensive deployments of IP phones or IoT devices, for example. This will also to be attractive to any organisation that wants to deploy WiFi 6 / 6E access points, as they will draw a little more on PoE.
L3 simplicity & Nebula support
Two further points worthy of note are that this is a Layer 3 switch, which helps with performance and simplifying the infrastructure. It can also be managed via Nebula, our increasingly popular cloud-based platform through which you can configure, monitor and manage network devices remotely. This is particularly important for customers that have a distributed network across various locations, and managed services provider partners.
In addition, you can configure the XGS2220 through a command line interface (CLI). This is a particular option that some customers do like to have, as it gives them a much more granular level of control.
There are many more features that I could mention as well. The bottom line is that, in the XGS2220, you have a 10 gigabit, Layer 3 switch that can support multiple fibre connections and uplinks. Other models have really excellent PoE options.
The XGS2220 is – as I mentioned earlier in this blog – one of our most versatile and capable switch families yet. We expect them to be deployed in many different scenarios for a wide variety of applications. They are available all over EMEA now. If you’d like to know more, please get in touch with us or your trusted Zyxel partner.
