NETGEAR Announces Business Network Management Platform and 10GE Managed Switch

NETGEAR, a global networking company that delivers innovative products to consumers, businesses and Internet service providers, today announced NETGEAR’s first centralized network management console for its business products, and a powerful 10 Gbps managed switch. These two products further NETGEAR’s commitment to business class networking products that deliver high performance with less complexity at price points far below those of solutions from traditional enterprise vendors.

“Mid-sized firms are in an awkward position when it comes to the use of advanced technology,” said Ray Boggs, vice president of Small/Medium Business Research at IDC. “They have large company needs without large company staff and budgets, yet they can no longer get by on the basic resources used by small businesses. Coordination of different IT components is a major challenge, with network communications, storage, and security all in need of alignment, especially as new cloud and hosted resources become more powerful and more affordable. Technology providers and their reseller partners have a real opportunity to help mid-sized firms enhance and coordinate their core technology to sharpen performance and productivity."

The new NETGEAR ProSafe® Network Management System (NMS200) gives customers a way to discover, configure, monitor and manage all NETGEAR Layer 2 and Layer 3 switches on their network from a simple, single interface. The ProSafe® 24-port 10 GE Managed L2+ Switch (XSM7224S) provides 10 Gbps server performance and scalability across the network. The ProSafe Network Management System will be expanded in future releases to manage other NETGEAR products.

“We recently switched from a traditional enterprise vendor and went with NETGEAR business networking solutions because they offer enterprise-class performance at a much better value,” said Aron Smetana, CIO, Headlands Asset Management. “The solutions are also easy to install and manage, and are very reliable, leaving us free to focus on running our business.”

Over 18 million businesses worldwide have broken free of the limitations of traditional enterprise vendors and deployed NETGEAR networking, storage and security solutions. To date, NETGEAR has delivered more than 700 petabytes of storage, 120 million Ethernet ports and two million firewalls to businesses and its 36,000 partners worldwide.

“NETGEAR’s business customers and partners have been asking us for a complete solution for their infrastructure needs, and today we’re delivering more,” said Shane Buckley, SVP and GM of NETGEAR’s SMB Products Business Unit. “These products give IT managers the power to control their network and get the speed and reliability that, before now, only the big enterprises could afford – the NETGEAR networking products are simply smarter solutions for business IT.”

ProSafe Network Management System (NMS200)
The new NETGEAR ProSafe Network Management System is designed specifically for IT managers who want a cohesive tool to manage the NETGEAR devices on their network. It’s the first unified management platform that can provide customers control across NETGEAR switching, wireless, storage and security products on the network. Available in October, it will handle NETGEAR’s managed switches. NETGEAR plans to extend in subsequent releases the management of NETGEAR’s smart switches, wireless, storage and security products.

The new NMS200 provides monitoring and configuration functionality for improved ease-of-use. From the moment a business user sets it up, the software automatically discovers supported NETGEAR products and brings them online so their performance can be managed and monitored 24x7. It comes with a single, simple console for extensive visibility, granular control and seamless automation across an entire business network.

The ProSafe Network Management System (NMS200) will be available in October 2010 with several license options that support the number of devices a business may have on their network. Business users can purchase a 15-device Pack license (NMS215) for $700 or can purchase up to a 500-device Pack license at $14,620. There are options for networks that have 30, 50 or 100 devices that need to be managed.

ProSafe 24-port 10GE Managed L2+ Switch (XSM7224S)
The NETGEAR ProSafe 24-port 10GE Managed L2+ Switch is the first 10 Gbps switch that enables businesses to accelerate their data centers to enterprise-class speed, with far less cost and complexity than traditional enterprise vendors. The solution meets all the requirements needed to run a 10 Gbps data center, enabling higher server performance in virtualized networks and the ability to connect multi-10GE attached storage products such as the NETGEAR ReadyNAS® 4200.

Available in December 2010, the ProSafe 24-port 10GE Managed L2+ Switch (XSM7224S) has a list price of $11,700 and a Layer 3 license upgrade (XSM7224L) will also be available for an additional $2,900.