Rob Golding

For a while now, I’ve been having problems with the network’s core switch - it’s a Planet FGSW-2620. Yes, I know, it’s a Planet. My mistake in the first place, it wasn’t even worth the cheap price I paid for it. It crashes almost every day, when the traffic level gets above approximately zero. To put it lightly, it’s a nightmare. Even the management is terrible - it can only be managed by it’s serial interface, has no web server, not even an IP - so there’s no SNMP, no Telnet, nothing.

Anyway, lets get onto the new switch, that will be arriving any day now. It’s a Netgear FSM726, and it looks a damn sight better than this Planet I’ve been running for a few months. I know it’s no ProCurve, but it’s got all the functionality of a high level enterprise switch - all types of SNMP and RMON, a web interface, Telnet, VLANS, the works. As long as I can monitor it somewhat, and it doesn’t crash all the time, I’ll be happy. Plus it will make a nice addition to the new server closet I’ve just moved into.