* Allied Telesyn changes name, releases stackable switches
While I wasn’t looking, Allied Telesyn last month changed its name to Allied Telesis, and then last week the newly renamed company released a line of stackable Ethernet switches for small and medium-sized businesses.
The subtle name change was done simply to align the North American operation with the larger global organization that owns it. The Allied Telesis Group is headquartered in Chiasso, Switzerland.
The company launched the AT-8000S family of managed Layer 2 Fast Ethernet switches. These are fixed-configuration switches that are stackable and include versions with or without Power over Ethernet, or PoE.
They have dedicated stacking interfaces and can do port trunking and mirroring that span multiple switches in a stack. QoS features include support for eight separate traffic priority types, four queues per port, IEEE 802.1p and DiffServ. Security features include support for RADIUS and 802.1x for authentication of users.
MAC-based virtual LANs are supported by the stackables, and users can set up a “guest” VLAN to limit visitors or unauthorized users to just certain services.
Allied Telesis (have to get used to the change) says the AT-8000S family will “initially” include five devices, implying that more are on the way. The product line currently includes switches with 16, 24 or 48 Fast Ethernet ports. The 24-port and 48-port versions are also available with PoE.
The 16-port version lists for $575, the 24-port switch costs $715 without PoE and $1,165 with it, and the 48-port switch lists for $1,105 without PoE and $1,995 with it.
