The WS-C2960-48TT-L is one of the Catalyst 2960 series fixed-configuration switches offering 10/100 Fast Ethernet and 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity with enhanced LAN services for midsize and branch office networks.

The 48TT-L model provides:

• Forty-Eight Ethernet 10/100 Base-T ports for desktop connectivity
• Two 10/100/1000 Ethernet uplink ports

The LAN Base feature set includes a rich Layer 2+ suite of intelligent services, including advanced quality of service (QoS), granular rate limiting, access control lists (ACLs), and multicast services.

Security is delivered through a wide range of authentication methods, data encryption technologies, and Network Admission Control (NAC) based on users, ports, and MAC addresses.

A similar switch, the WS-C2960-48TT-S, provides entry-level features at a lower cost of ownership. See the Cisco website for a comparison in PDF form.

There are two options for switch management: an embedded GUI device manager for all operating systems and the Windows-based Cisco Network Assistant available at no cost from the Cisco website http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps5931/index.html.

Here are some notable features of this product:

• Enhancements to the standard Spanning Tree Protocol, such as Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus (PVST+), UplinkFast, and PortFast, help to maximize network uptime.
• Multilayer QoS features help ensure that network traffic is classified and prioritized, and that congestion is avoided in the best possible manner.
• Express Setup simplifies initial configuration of a switch through a web browser.
• ACLs can be used to restrict access to sensitive portions of the network by denying packets based on source and destination MAC addresses, IP addresses, or TCP/User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports. ACL lookups are done in hardware, so forwarding performance is not compromised when implementing ACL-based security.

Product service and support: Cisco will provide five years of hardware and software service and support (SMARTnet) for any product obtained through this donation program (Linksys products not included).

More information about this product is available on the Cisco website.