With the Cisco Catalyst 2950 line, Cisco Systems targets entry-level customers in the enterprise market. We reviewed the 2950T-24, which is equipped with 24 10/100 ports and two 10/100/1000Base-T ports. Cisco rates the switch at 8.8-Gbps throughput at the backplane and a maximum forwarding bandwidth of 4.4 Gbps. In general, this is a full-featured, high-quality, strong-performing switch at an attractive price.

The 2950T-24 has an impressive set of features paired with an administrator-friendly management system. VLANs, IGMP snooping, and QoS add traffic management components that are expected in this class. The 2950T-24's QoS incorporates 802.1q, 802.1p, strict priority, and round-robin procedures.

Switch management is achieved either through CLI and telnet or through CMS, Cisco's Cluster Management Suite. CMS uses Java applets and the Java 2 runtime environment. CMS's greatest benefit is its ability to manage a cluster of devices through one interface, though the interface itself could use some polishing.