Interop: D-Link Keeps The Green Coming

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After one exciting day at Inteorp and 2 days in Vegas, I met with Daniel Kelley, Senior Director of Marketing and Joe Melfi, the Technical Marketing Engineer for D-Link, the $1.3 billion equipment manufacturer and global SMB brand. I knew of D-Link when I worked at 3Com. D-Link has operations in 100 countries and operates from 130 offices around the world. With a complete SMB network infrastructure offering including unmanaged, smart, stackable and modular 10/100/1000 and 10G switches, routers, WiFi access points, VPN products, Microsoft Response Point servers and VoIP phones, video conferencing endpoints, digital signage, network storage for both home, SMB and government.

The big question was around the basis for their 'Green Ethernet' claims and campaign. Earlier in 2008, D-Link launched the DGS2205 and DGS2208 'Green Ethernet' unmanaged desktop switches that power down when not in use and support a feature for Power Savings by Cable Length. This feature allows the switch to analyze the length of any attached Ethernet cable and adjusts the power consumption to suit the length, but not over drive the signal. D-Link's research shows that when connected and powered down, the DGS-2208 multi-port desktop switch can realize up to 80 percent savings in power usage.

At Interop, D-Link announced their plan to expand these capabilities into 16 and 24 port unmanaged rack mountable switches (DGS1016D and 1024D) and to the 16, 24, and 48 port (DGS1216T, 1224T and 1248T) smart switch product line. (Smart refers to being browser managed versus SNMP client managed).

D-Link is also an Energy Star partner which is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) to promote energy conservation and management best practices. They have qualified several of their power bricks and supplies according to this program.

D-Link is the first to offer this level of green-ness in Ethernet switching products. I fully expect the company will expand these features for the rest of the switching line, particularly if it delivers a green premium or preference.