Linksys, a Division of Cisco Systems, has announced the immediate availability of its first smart switch in India – the 24-Port 10/100 + 2-Port 10/100/1000 Gigabit Advanced Smart Switch with 2 Combo SFPs (SLM224G2). The SLM224G2 is designed to provide small businesses with cost-effective and secure switching that can help scale to address their ever changing business needs.

The Linksys SLM224G2 Smart Switch is designed to bring a whole new level of intelligence and security to small business networks. It offers 24 10/100 Ethernet ports with two 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet (copper) ports or optional optical (SFP) interfaces for uplinking connected users to the core network. The simplified user interface is designed to provide an intuitive, secure management platform, enabling administrators to better utilize the comprehensive feature-set of the switch, resulting in better optimized, more secure network. Furthermore, its easy-to-use web browser interface is designed to make installation quick and effortless.

Commenting on the launch Mr. Sanjeev Gupta, Linksys regional sales director for Asia Pacific said, “There are millions of small businesses in India . Most of them are undergoing rapid development and have their own demands on their networks. Being deeply dedicated to the small business market and focusing on the needs of users in India, Linksys is launching the SLM224G2 Smart Switch, which helps to better address small business user's needs through optimized, safe, cost-effective, easy-to-mange, and intelligent solutions. Linksys will continue to bring various networking products to help address different needs of small business users.”

Businesses are recognizing the benefits of Voice over IP (VoIP) phone calling and are quickly migrating their voice services to IP-based platforms, requiring their local area networks to support both voice and data applications. The SLM224G2 QoS features make the solution ideal for real-time applications like voice and video. The four priority queues together with Weighted Round Robin (WRR) and Strict Priority (SP) scheduling techniques are designed to help network administrators quickly prioritize real-time voice and video traffic over data traffic.

Individual users or applications can also be prioritized above others using various Class of Service (CoS) options – by port, Layer 2 priority (802.1p), and Layer 3 priority (TOS or DSCP). Intelligent Broadcast, Multicast, and Unknown Unicast storm control minimize and contain the effects that these types of storms may have on regular traffic. IGMP Snooping is designed to limit bandwidth-intensive video traffic to only the requestors without flooding all users. Incoming traffic can be policed and outgoing traffic can be shaped helping network administrators to control network access and traffic flow.

Network security is a high priority for any size business and unauthorized access to the network and mission critical data is a constant concern. The SLM224G2 is designed to help secure the network of small business through 802.1X port authentication and MAC-based filtering.