Netgear Storms Interop With New Wares

Netgear came out of its corner swinging at Interop Las Vegas 2008, releasing five new products it says will not only cement its place in the SMB market, but will also help it climb higher up the food chain into companies that are starting to outgrow their true small business status.

First, Netgear unveiled two new switches designed to deliver robust security and enhanced traffic management and availability to growing networks in the SMB. The ProSafe 24- and 48-Port Gigabit Smart Switches with Static Routing (GS724TR and GS748TR).

The switches are designed to provide effective bandwidth management for organization that deploy VLANs. They can support 32 static routes, meaning companies can off-load their inter-VLAN communications from the core router, making the network run faster and enabling companies to deploy a less expensive router in the core network.

The GS724TR (pictured) will feature 24 10/100/1000 ports and list for $925.

The GS724TR's 48-port counterpart, the GS748TR, features 48 ports of 10/100/1000 and four shared SFP ports. The GS749TR, which lists for $1,665, and the GS724TR are both covered by Netgear's ProSafe Lifetime Warranty and offer robust security, higher QoS and high availability through an advanced feature set that includes Access Control Lists, 802.1x port authentication, rate limiting, IGMP snooping and Rapid Spanning Tree. They can be managed through Netgear's Web-based ProSafe Control Center.

The third switch introduced by Netgear at Interop is the 24-Port Gigabit Smart Switch with Advanced Features, or GS724AT (pictured).

The switch gives SMBs management capabilities often found in fully managed switches without the added cost and complexity of a managed solution. The switch incorporates 24 10/100/1000 ports and four combination SFP ports for optional fiber connectivity, which lets business deploy advanced business application such as security, ERP, wireless, VoIP and more. The switch also features Access Control Lists for increased security, Layer 3-based QoS for enhanced traffic prioritization, Auto Voice VLAN for plug-and-play VoIP deployment and Rapid Spanning Tree for availability.

The GS724AT lists for $575.

Netgear at Interop also launched a new six-bay small form factor desktop network attached storage (NAS) solution, the ReadyNAS Pro 1.5TB Gigabit Desktop Storage, ReadyNAS Pro 3TB Gigabit Desktop Storage and ReadyNAS Pro 6TB Gigabit Desktop Storage offer SMBs centralized network storage for up to 200 users.

ReadyNAS Pro offers up to 6TB of network attached storage enabling users cross the LAN or WAN to store, backup and share digital data from a combination of Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. ReadyNAS Pro also features dual redundant Gigabit Ethernet ports for failover protection.

ReadyNAS Pro will be available in the third quarter and start at $2,000.

Lastly, Netgear threw its hat into the 802.11n wireless ring, announcing a new 802.11n access point. The ProSafe 802.11n Dual Band Wireless Access Point (WNDAP330) is designed for SMBs and offers the speed and coverage of 5Ghz 802.11n wireless while also supporting legacy 802.11 a/b/g devices.

The new access point also incorporates 802.3af PoE support to eliminate cables and secures the wireless network with features including WPA, WPA2, rogue AP detection and 802.1x with RADIUS support. It also features a 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet port with Auto Uplink, a console port for local configuration and monitoring and three detachable antennas -- two 5dBi and one 3dBi.

The access point is available now and lists for $475.