PowerConnect 5500 Series
PowerConnect 5500 series switches, the successor of the 5400 series, are based on Marvell technology. They offer 24 or 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports with (-P series) or without PoE. Where the 5400 series has 4 ports for SFP tranceivers on the front and the option to place 2 stacking or 10 Gigabit ports on the back, the 5500 series have these interfaces built in and on the front: there are two stacking ports with HDMI connectors and two SFP+ slots for 10 Gigabit Ethernet links. All 5500 series models (5524, 5524P, 5548 and 5548P) can be combined in a single stack with up to 8 units per stack. The 5500 series uses standard HDMI cables (specification 1.4 category 2 or better) to stack with a total bandwidth of 40 Gbit/s per switch.
The 5500 series are often used as TOR switches and client access-switches in wiring cabinets in offices or (university) campus networks. The 5500P series are mainly client access switches connecting VOIP phones and (daisy chained or directly connected) workstations. The -P models have Gigabit Ethernet ports that are PoE capable, but connecting more than 24 ports with PoE requires the MPS-600 external power-supply together with the built-in AC power-supply. Using the MPS-600 makes the power supply redundant (although you can only power up to 24 PoE devices when one of the two power-supplies fail.). For redundant power supply on the non-PoE devices you can use the RPS-series redundant power supply in combination with the built-in supply.
The 5500 series are stackable to combine several 5500-series switches into one virtual switch. The 5500 series switches are mainly designed to be pure layer 2 switches but it has some very basic layer 3 capabilities. Other standard features are enhanced VOIP support where the switch automatically recognizes connected VOIP devices and configure VOIP quality of service and a VOIP-VLAN. This feature will only work optimally in small VOIP networks. There is also iSCSI optimization and auto-configuration, though Dell does not support them with their EqualLogic family of storage arrays. The switch also supports IEEE 802.1X (Dot1x) port-authetication.
Read more about this topic: Dell Power Connect, Product Line
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