Networking product vendor, SMC Networks, has introduced three new products in its EZ range targeted at customers with 250 nodes or less - a stackable 10/100 Mbps hub, a cost-effective 10 Mbps stackable model and a PCI network card.
Greg Perkins, SMC country manager, says these products are ideal for a market in which the number of small and medium enterprises is rapidly increasing.
"The EZ Stack 10 hub is aimed at users looking to grow existing 10BASE-T Ethernet networks," he explains. "This 16-port hub can be used standalone or stacked ten high to build a 10BASE-T hub with 160 ports."
An EZ Stack 10 intelligent hub can also be added to an existing stack for SNMP management. These rack-mountable models feature a replaceable slide-in module with a BNC port, support for data path redundancy and dual SNMP agents, port-based security, eavesdrop protection and configurable threshold alarms.
SMC`s EZ Stack 10/100 hubs offer users a solution for easy, economical, Fast Ethernet integration and growth. Additional benefits include the 8- and 16-port base hubs` ability to be used standalone or stacked with up to five additional hubs, scalable to 96 ports.
"The base hub automatically directs 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps traffic to the appropriate segment and then interconnects the two segments via an internal switch," says Perkins, adding that for flexibility, one port on each model is switch-selectable.
"It can serve as a crossover or daisy-chain port to cascade to another device for further expansion of the 10 or 100 Mbps segments, or to support greater distances."
SMC is also offering customers low cost Ethernet/Fast Ethernet connectivity via its EZ Card 10/100 PCI network card. Perkins says this dual-speed plug-and-play device supports auto-negotiation, early receive and transmit interrupt to eliminate I/O bottlenecks, and 32-bit data transfer mode.
It also features bus-master architecture to reduce CPU utilisation, drivers for most network operating systems, a boot ROM socket and diagnostic LEDs.
SMC Networks currently offers two distinct product lines, providing customers choices within a single source, depending upon their network infrastructure. The SMC EZ line of LAN solutions delivers low-cost, plug-and-play, network cards, hubs, and stackable hubs, as well as desktop and workgroup switches.
The SMC Tiger line of LAN solutions, spanning the same product categories as the EZ line, are designed for managed LAN growth. These high-performance products offer enhanced functionality such as hub-based segmentation and integrated switching, as well as management capabilities including SNMP and RMON.
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