Solid, reliable networking gear

These [Cisco Catalyst 2960- L Series] switches are used in ODF closets, server racks, and other general secured networking locations within the businesses I currently support and have supported in the past. They are very reliable and the CLI is common with several other Cisco switch models. I have almost always purchased the rack-mountable 24- or 48-port models with 2 or 4 G-Bic ports for fiber optic connectivity between nodes. There have been a few smaller versions purchased for proprietary reasons. All have been incredibly reliable.

At one site we were able to copy the configuration, then paste that configuration into 64 identical switches, edit each static IP, then walk away with a complete floor of switched machine banks that were secured to the PCI standards required in a short amount of time. That same company had six IDF closets with stacks of four switches in each that were also nearly identical, so we performed the same procedure with fast results.

VLAN management to segment network traffic is essential for some environments and simply convenient for others. The ability to secure certain kinds of traffic is easily achieved in the switch management. Another nice feature the CLI provides is several security features that can be assigned (per port or with a range).