Small and midsize companies often lack the resources and time required to implement and manage an enterprise-scale network. And yet, to give employees quick and reliable access to time- and money-saving IT such as unified communications, virtual desktops, cloud-based architectures and video-streaming tools, companies need a network that delivers 1GbE or faster in performance.
Nation’s Best Sports (NBS), a small sporting goods buying group, found an affordable, easy-to-manage solution to meet its enterprise-scale network needs: the Dell X-Series family of smart managed switches. Rodney Torrence, IT systems administrator at Nation’s Best Sports, says, “The Dell X-Series switch has the best graphical user interface I’ve ever seen. You’re able to set up your V-LANs in a quarter of the time it takes with a command-line interface. Everything is right there within one or two clicks. I don’t know if you can say that about any other switch on the market. Configuring a Cisco switch takes an engineering degree. You have to go to classes and learn a whole bunch of techno-jargon.”
To get the performance needed to support its servers, client devices and user applications, including a bandwidth-hungry Voice over IP (VoIP) phone system, NBS chose the Dell X-Series X1026P switch. It includes 24 1GbE ports that also support Power over Ethernet (POE), making it possible for NBS to place security cameras where they are needed rather than choosing locations based on proximity to power outlets. “The Dell X-Series switch can definitely handle the load as my top-of-rack switch,” says Torrence. “I set up Voice-over-IP phones and POE cameras, plugged in laptops, plugged in other switches … looked at it and said, ‘Yeah! I like it!’ Everything it did, it did well. I would recommend the X-Series switch to all my peers.”
To watch a video about NBS and its usage of the Dell X-Series X1026P switch, click here.
For more information about the Dell X-Series family of smart managed switches, click here.