IT Pro Verdict
Pros
- +
Smart web console
- +
Improved remote management
Cons
- -
Lack of configuration options
Businesses planning office-wide deployments of IP phones, wireless APs and IP cameras need a Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) device that can keep up with them, and TP-Link's JetStream TL-SG3452XP looks the perfect candidate. For an affordable £664, it presents 48 PoE-enabled gigabit ports and teams them up with four 10-gigabit fibre SFP+ ports for high-speed uplinks.
More importantly, the switch offers a generous 500W power budget – one of the highest available at this price point. It can deliver 15.4W PoE or 30W PoE+ on each Ethernet port so is clearly capable of supporting a large number of powered devices (PDs).
At its foundation, the TL-SG3452XP is a Layer 2 switch with basic Layer 3 routing capabilities. Often referred to as "Layer 3 Lite" or "Advanced L2+", it supports static IPv4 and IPv6 routing, but not the dynamic routing found in more costly full Layer 3 switches.
Management choices abound, and you can opt for standalone mode or move it all into the cloud. For the former, the switch provides a smartly designed web console, and a quick glance shows how many features are on offer.
Standard L2 features are plentiful and include port, MAC and protocol-based VLANs and QoS traffic prioritization, plus static and LACP link aggregation groups. The switch ensures general data traffic doesn't interfere with VoIP call performance as it identifies IP phone traffic and automatically prioritises it with dynamic voice VLANs. That big power budget means you can add a lot of PDs but, if you're worried about exceeding it, priorities can be applied to individual ports.
Assign low, middle or high priorities to each one and, if the total draw reaches the power threshold, those with the lowest priorities will be turned off first. Power profiles make this even easier as they can be assigned to multiple ports. These enable or disable PoE services and set power limits based on manually entered values in watts or one of four PoE device classes.
Remote management has seen a number of improvements. TP-Link's Omada service augments its on-site software and hardware controllers with cloud-hosted versions. Omada still supports all on-site controllers, but moving them into the cloud will undoubtedly appeal to businesses with remote offices as they can use zero-touch provisioning to speed up device deployments.
All controllers assigned to your account are viewed from the Omada cloud portal, and selecting one transports you to its own management console. Prior to adding the switch to our account, we ensured it was running the latest firmware, which adds a new option in its local web console for enabling cloud-based controller management.
Importing the switch required its serial number, a meaningful name, local admin credentials and a licence assigned. Once adopted, access to its local web console was disabled and it took all its settings from the cloud controller.
The site portal opens with a customisable dashboard, and we added widgets to display active switch ports, PoE usage and traffic activity. Selecting the switch from the device page provides a graphic to the right showing which ports are providing power and their connection speed. An overview below reveals the available power budget and tabs are provided for assigning profiles to each port, rebooting PDs and viewing attached clients.
It's annoying that some features such as port PoE priorities can't be configured from the cloud portal, but override profiles can be used to tell the switch to keep its existing settings after importing.
Mobile support is provided, and we used the free Omada iOS app on an iPad to monitor all our controllers and associated sites. It presents plenty of information on site devices and we could keep a close eye on the switch's power usage and available budget.
The JetStream TL-SG3452XP is a great choice for highly dense PoE deployments. It delivers a heap of gigabit ports and a big power budget at a low price while TP-Link's Omada platform offers a flexible range of cloud management services.
