Cisco Systems Catalyst 2948G Network Switch Review

Bottom-Line: If you need a diminutive, but reliable, network switch for a small, medium, or large sized corporate environments the Catalyst 2948G might be the solution for you.

Oftentimes even in a large networking environment like the one I oversee, there is a need for small rack-mountable network switches that are relatively inexpensive, easy to configure, yet are robust enough to service a workgroup, and communicate with the rest of the network at the standard 1000BaseX or Gigabit Ethernet. 

The business currently house it's servers in an industry standard Network Operations Center (NOC), a space they share with severs from other divisions of the company.  Most of the networking infrastructure is shared, however there is a need to connect the various regions of our sprawling building directly to our servers; that is where our two Cisco Catalyst 2948G (48) port switches come into play.     

The Catalyst 2948G  is a small foot-print, rack-mountable (2U) fixed-configuration Layer 2 Ethernet switch that provides high-performance, high bandwidth switching between workstations, servers, switches (network backbone), and routers.  The Catalyst 2948G is equipped with 48 auto-sensing switched 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX ports, and 2x 1000Base-X ports which require a Gigabit Interface Converter (GBIC) per port.  The Catalyst 2948G uses the same Catalyst system software as the Cisco's Catalyst 4000/4500/5000/5500 Series switches, thereby ensuring complete interoperability with existing Catalyst switches.

Since the Catalyst 2948G is small, the power supply is in the rear of the unit, as is the power switch.  The front of the unit is festooned with the 48 Ethernet ports and their corresponding status display lights.        

My Viewpoint

Preparing the switch to communicate with our network took less then ten minute to accomplish; in addition to configuring the ports, I also assigned the switch an IP Address, as well supervisor ID and password for attaching locally or remotely.  After mounting the switch in the rack and securing it, I inserted one GBIC uplink connector, attached the fiber and began to receive traffic from the main Catalyst 6009.       

Compared to the Catalyst 4000 and 6000 Series switches, the Catalyst 2948G is relatively inexpensive; a new unit can cost as much as $4000.00, but used and refurbished 2948G's can be had for as little as $800.00.  Not too bad a price considering the level of functionality you can expect from the switch; the GBIC uplink connectors are sold separately, but I have seen then listed for as little as $45.00 each.    

If you need a diminutive, but reliable, network switch for a small, medium, or large sized corporate environments the Cisco Catalyst 2948G might be the solution you have been looking for.