Overview:
Easy-to-Use Managed Switches that Provide the Ideal Combination of Features and Affordability
To stay ahead in a competitive marketplace, small businesses need to make every dollar count. That means getting the most value from your technology investments, but it also means making sure that employees have fast, reliable access to the business tools and information they need. Every minute an employee waits for an unresponsive application - and every minute your network is down - has an impact on your bottom line. The importance of maintaining a strong and dependable business network only grows as your business adds more employees, applications, and network complexity.
When your business needs advanced security and features but value is still a top consideration, you're ready for the new generation of Cisco® Small Business managed switches: the Cisco 300 Series.
Cisco 300 Series Switches
The Cisco 300 Series, part of the Cisco Small Business line of network solutions, is a portfolio of affordable managed switches that provides a reliable foundation for your business network. These switches deliver the features you need to improve the availability of your critical business applications, protect your sensitive information, and optimize your network bandwidth to deliver information and applications more effectively. Easy to set up and use, the Cisco 300 Series provides the ideal combination of affordability and capabilities for small businesses, and helps you create a more efficient, better-connected workforce.
The Cisco 300 Series is broad portfolio of fixed-configuration managed Ethernet switches. Models are available with 8 to 48 ports of Fast Ethernet and 10 to 52 ports of Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, providing optimal flexibility to create exactly the right network foundation for your business. However, unlike other small business switching solutions that provide managed network capabilities only in the costliest models, all Cisco 300 Series Switches support the advanced security management capabilities and network features you need to support business-class data, voice, security, and wireless technologies. At the same time, these switches are simple to deploy and configure, allowing you to take advantage of the managed network services your business needs.
Business Applications
Whether you need a basic high-performance network to connect employee computers or a solution to deliver data, voice, and video services, the Cisco 300 Series offers a solution to meet your needs. Possible deployment scenarios include:
- Secure desktop connectivity: Cisco 300 Series Switches can simply and securely connect employees working in small offices with each other and with all of the servers, printers, and other devices they use. High performance and reliable connectivity helps speed file transfers and data processing, improves network uptime, and keeps your employees connected and productive.
- Secure wireless connectivity: Cisco 300 Series Switches allow employees to work productively from conference rooms and common areas, collaborate in any office, and access business applications from wherever they are. Gigabit Ethernet connectivity helps ensure that your employees have the bandwidth and performance they need to make the most of mobile productivity. And with embedded security, your employees can work with confidence, knowing that only authorized users can access applications and network devices.
- Unified communications: As a managed network solution, the Cisco 300 Series provides the performance and advanced traffic-handling intelligence you need to deliver all communications and data over a single network. Cisco offers a complete portfolio of IP telephony and other unified communications products designed for small businesses. Cisco 300 Series Switches have been rigorously tested to help ensure easy integration and full compatibility with these and other products, providing a complete small business solution.
- Highly secure guest connectivity. Cisco 300 Series Switches let you extend highly secure network connectivity to guests in a variety of settings, such as a hotel, an office waiting room, or any other area open to nonemployee users. Using powerful but easy-to-configure security and traffic segmentation capabilities, you can isolate your vital business traffic from guest services and keep guests' network sessions private from each other.
Features and Benefits:
Cisco 300 Series Switches provide security, performance, traffic management, and other capabilities - optimized and customized, and at the right price for small businesses. The Cisco 300 Series provides:
- High performance and reliability: Cisco 300 Series Switches have been rigorously tested to deliver the high availability and performance you expect from a Cisco switch. The solutions speed up file transfer times and improve slow, sluggish networks, while keeping your vital business applications available and preventing costly downtime. As a managed switching solution, the Cisco 300 Series also gives you the flexibility to manage and prioritize high-bandwidth traffic such as voice. That means you can empower your employees with state-of-the-art communication and productivity solutions, without draining the performance of your other business applications.
- Fast, easy setup and configuration: Cisco 300 Series Switches are designed to be easy to use and manage by small businesses and the partners who serve them. The included device manager software provides an intuitive, web-based interface to simplify setup, security, and quality of service (QoS) traffic prioritization, allowing even users without IT expertise to configure the switch in minutes. Cisco also provides a utility that works through a simple toolbar on the user's web browser to discover Cisco devices in the network and display basic information, such as serial numbers and IP addresses, to aid in the configuration and deployment of Cisco Small Business products. These switches use Cisco Discovery Protocol to automatically detect all the devices connected to your network, and then automatically configure themselves for the appropriate connectivity and security. For more advanced capabilities and hands-on control, simple-to-use graphical tools such as Cisco Smartports provide preset options for configuring each port on a switch, based on Cisco best practices and pretested configurations. Although the Cisco 300 Series is designed to be deployed without using a command-line interface (CLI), Cisco Textview will be available for those who prefer to use text-based configuration.* Together, these features reduce the time your staff must devote to network deployment, management, and troubleshooting.
*Cisco Discovery Protocol, Smartports, and Textview will be available in the next firmware release.
- Strong security: The Cisco 300 Series Switches provide a high level of security and give you fine-grained control to safeguard your network from unauthorized users. Advanced security features include:
- Embedded security to protect management data traveling to and from the switch and encrypt network communications
- Extensive access control lists (ACLs) to restrict sensitive portions of the network from unauthorized users and guard against network attacks
- Guest virtual LANs (VLANs) to let you provide Internet connectivity to nonemployee users while isolating critical business services from guest traffic
- Support for advanced network security applications such as IEEE 802.1X port security to tightly limit access to specific segments of your network
- Power over Ethernet: Cisco 300 Series Switches are available with up to 48 PoE ports of Fast Ethernet or 28 PoE ports of Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. This capability simplifies advanced technology deployments such as IP telephony, wireless, and IP surveillance by allowing you to connect and power network endpoints over a single Ethernet cable. With no need to install separate power supplies for IP phones or wireless access points, you can take advantage of advanced communications technologies more quickly, and at a lower cost.
- IP telephony support: Cisco 300 Series Switches include embedded QoS intelligence to prioritize delay-sensitive services such as voice and video, simplify unified communications deployments, and help ensure consistent network performance for all services. For example, automated voice VLAN capabilities let you plug any IP phone (including third-party phones) into your IP telephony network and receive an immediate dial tone. The switch automatically configures the device with the right VLAN and QoS parameters to prioritize voice traffic.
- Advanced network management capabilities: As managed switches, the Cisco 300 Series lets you use a variety of advanced features to control traffic over your network. Features include:
- Static routing/Layer 3 switching between VLANs: This capability allows you to segment your network into separate workgroups and communicate across VLANs without degrading application performance. As a result, you can manage internal routing with your switches and dedicate your router to external traffic and security, helping your network run more efficiently.
- IPv6 support: As the IP network addressing scheme evolves to accommodate more devices, you can make sure that your network is ready. The Cisco 300 Series provides native support for IPv6, the newest version of the Internet Protocol, as well as the previous IPv4 standard. As a result, you will be able to move up to the next generation of networking applications and operating systems without an extensive equipment upgrade
- Dual image support: With the ability to maintain dual images of your switches, you can perform software upgrades without having to take the network offline and without worrying about an outage during an upgrade.
- Remote management: Using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), you can set up and manage all switches and other Cisco devices in your network remotely, instead of having to directly connect to them.
- Optimal energy efficiency: Cisco 300 Series Switches are designed with a variety of power-saving features across all models, providing the industry's broadest portfolio of "green" switches. These switches optimize power use to protect the environment and reduce energy costs, without compromising performance. Power-saving features include:
- The latest application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), using low-power 65-nanometer technology (these chipsets allow for lower power consumption and thinner, more efficient designs)
- Automatic power shutoff on PoE ports when a link is down
- Embedded intelligence to adjust signal strength based on cable length
- Fanless design in most models, which reduces power consumption, increases reliability, and provides quieter operation
- Expansion ports: The Cisco 300 Series provides more ports per Gigabit Ethernet switch than traditional switch models, giving you more flexibility to connect and empower your business. Gigabit Ethernet models feature 28- and 52-port switches, versus traditional devices that offer 20 or 44 ports with four shared ports giving you more value. The Cisco 300 Series also offers mini gigabit interface converter (mini-GBIC) expansion slots that give you the option to add fiber-optic or Gigabit Ethernet uplink connectivity to the switch. With the ability to increase the connectivity range of the switches, you have more flexibility to design your network around your unique business environment, and to easily connect switches on different floors or across the business.
- Multiple languages: The Cisco 300 Series is available in seven languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and simplified Chinese. All product user interfaces and documentation are translated, giving you the ability to select your preferred language.
- Peace of mind and investment protection: Cisco 300 Series Switches offer the reliable performance, investment protection, and peace of mind you expect from a Cisco switch. When you invest in the Cisco 300 Series, you gain the benefit of:
- Cisco limited lifetime warranty with next business day advance replacement (where available)
- Cisco Small Business Investment Protection program, which lets you upgrade your Cisco 300 Series to another Cisco Small Business or Cisco Catalyst® switch in the future and receive credit for the value of the switch (available only in the United States and Canada)
- Rigorous testing to help ensure easy integration and compatibility with other Cisco networking and communications products, including the complete Cisco Small Business portfolio
- Service and Support: Cisco 300 Series Switches are backed by the Cisco Small Business Support Service, which provides affordable peace-of-mind coverage. This subscription-based service helps you protect your investment and derive maximum value from Cisco Small Business products. Delivered by Cisco and backed by your trusted partner, this comprehensive service includes software updates, access to the Cisco Small Business Support Center, and extends technical service to three years.
Cisco Small Business products are supported by professionals in Cisco Small Business Support Center locations worldwide who are specifically trained to understand your needs. The Cisco Small Business Support Community, an online forum, enables you to collaborate with your peers and reach Cisco technical experts for support information.
- Cisco Limited Lifetime Hardware Warranty: Cisco 300 Series Switches offer a limited lifetime hardware warranty with next business day advance replacement (where available, otherwise same day ship) and a limited lifetime warranty for fans and power supplies. In addition, Cisco offers software application updates for bug fixes for the warranty term, and telephone technical support at no charge for the first 12 months following the date of purchase.
