D-Link Powers Up New IP Switches

The Fountain Valley, Calif., maker of IP networking gear for SMBs expanded its xStack 3800 series with the DES-3828 and DES-3828P—stackable, 24-port 100-Mbps layer 3 switches with two Gigabit copper ports.

The DES-3828P delivers the added bonus of a 395-watt power supply that enables the switch to support a continuous 15.4 watts of PoE juice to all 24 ports, giving it the ability to light up every PoE device connected to it, said Rocky Rosas, technical marketing engineer at D-Link. A 15.4-watt feed is considered the industry watermark for most PoE requirements, he said.

“What we are seeing with some of the competition is that they can provide 15.4 watts on a single port, but they haven&'t got the capacity in the switch to provide that full 15.4 watts across all of their ports at the same time,” Rosas said.

“We wanted to make sure we had a big enough power supply in the device that could provide that simultaneous power to all the devices on the box.”

Being able to provide PoE to more devices with fewer switches means VARs can increase their margins for solution-oriented network deployments, while at the same time positioning themselves to bid more competitively, said Neil Medwed, president of Preferred Technology, a networking gear VAR in Richardson, Texas, that resells D-Link alongside competing products from Cisco Systems, Intel and Hewlett-Packard. “I believe [these new switches] will make us more money in the long run,” he said.

“Many of the competition don&'t have enough power to spread through all 24 ports concurrently, and that does lead to certain difficulties. But these new switches make [IP network deployments] more affordable in larger installations because you need fewer switches,” Medwed said.

The D-Link xStack 3800 series switches support 802.3ad aggregation for as many as 32 groups, and also support 4000 static VLANs, according to D-Link.

The combination of all these features and D-Link's aggressive pricing marks a significant advance for the vendor, Medwed said.

Available Sept. 1, the DES-3828 is priced from $1,299, and the DES-3828P starts at $2,199.