Enterasys’ leadership position in the switching market is further enhanced by the Enterasys® SecureStack™ A2 stackable enterprise switch. The SecureStack A2 is a high-performance Fast Ethernet edge switch that provides scalable, wire-rate performance in support of the bandwidth-intensive and delay-sensitive requirements of today’s demanding applications. With support for 8,000 MAC addresses, the A2 is an excellent choice for environments that require complete multilayer switching capabilities and support for high density (10/100Base-T, 100Base-FX) Ethernet ports. The A2 is well suited for 100Mb networks that may also require Gigabit Ethernet uplink connections. In addition to its complete multilayer switching capabilities, the A2 also provides multilayer packet classification and priority queuing for differentiated services. Along with a switch capacity of 17.6Gbps, the A2 provides up to 48 10/100Base-T or 24 100Base-FX Ethernet ports as well as 2 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, which can be used as uplink or stacking connections. As many as 8 A2s can be interconnected in a single stack to create a virtual switch that provides 140.8Gbps of capacity and up to 384 10/100Base-T or 192 100Base-FX Ethernet ports as well as 32 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports for uplink or stacking connections.

Robust quality of service (QoS) features enable strong support for integrated multimedia networks, including Voice over IP, video, as well as all types of data-intensive applications. The A2 provides 8 hardware-based priority queues for each Ethernet port to support a suite of differentiated services with as many as 8 distinct priority levels. In conjunction with its non-blocking L2 switching architecture, the A2’s intelligent queuing mechanisms ensure that mission-critical applications receive prioritized access to network resources.

The A2 provides a secure network by utilizing its authentication and security features, which can be applied at the port level or at the user level. The A2 supports a single user/device per port, which can be authenticated via IEEE 802.1X or MAC address.