11. Other Features

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I know I said I wouldn't be getting into the details of each feature, and I won't. But there are a few other features that are worth a special mention:

Port Authentication - It would be nice if the 728TS allowed you to authenticate users - i.e. make them log in before they are allowed network access - but it doesn't, at least not by itself. Its Port Authentication features are limited to passing along authentication requests to a RADIUS server, which does the actual authentication. If you are able to use Port Authentication, you'll probably like the fact that ports that fail authentication can be switched to a "Guest" VLAN of your choice, to keep them away from authenticated traffic.

Link Aggregation - Also known as "port trunking", the LAG (Link Aggregation Group) feature allows you to group ports together for redundancy or higher bandwidth. The LAG feature supports the IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) standard.

Logging and Monitoring - The 728TS supports numerous methods to let you see what it's up to. Information is logged to both internal volatile memory (Memory Logs) and non-volatile memory (Flash Logs). You can also control the level of what's logged, including messages labeled Emergency, Alert, Critical, Error, Warning, Notice, Informational and Debug. Figure 19 shows some sample log output.

Figure 19: Memory Log
(click image to enlarge)

You can also log to multiple syslog servers and set IP address, severity level logged and logical port (UDP 514 is default).

If traffic statistics are your thing, you can get per-port stats via the admin interface, or via the RMON features, which support definable history, events and alarms. Since RMON works in concert with SNMP, you'll be pleased to know that SNMP v1, v2c and v3 are supported, and that the management information base (MIB) files are included on the Resource CD that comes with the 728TS.

Spanning Tree - High uptime is always important in larger networks, and redundancy is one of the methods used to achieve it. The IEEE 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) lets you connect switches redundantly without creating loops that result in broadcast storms. Of course, the 728TS supports STP, with individual controls on all ports.