Ports 'n Cooling
Count 'em--8+4 ports
The unit allows for eight RJ45 2.5G ports. All eight multi-Gigabit ports are compliant with the 802.3bt PoE++ protocol, and the device has a total power budget of 240 watts. This means that the ECS2512FP can offer 30W on every port at the same time, or 60W on any four of them at the same time. This is a managed switch (layer 2), which we call smart switches. However, if you want dumb; you plug it in, connect, and are good to go.
It is possible to manage the switch through its built-in web console, or by integrating it into EnGenius' free cloud portal, well that or with EnGenius' ezMaster management software, which may be installed in a virtual machine, on an EnGenius SkyKey appliance, or in the cloud on Amazon AWS. Also a mobile application exists, however it is purely for monitoring purposes and does not provide any setting choices.
All of the status LEDs are located on the left, including Power, Fault, LAN and PoE Mode and PoE Max, which are all located on the console's network port. While holding down the reset button for an extended period of time restores the switch to its factory default settings, the LED mode selector button toggles between LAN and PoE mode. The switch at default takes a DHCP lease, and thus configures itself in your network, use an app like find to locate it, type the IP in a browser and you can access it using default credentials admin/password. Once logged in you'll be forced to change the admin password of course. Once logged in, the sky is the limit.
The ECS2512FP has all of its connections on the front of the switch, including the eight 100Mbps/1Gbps/2.5Gbps ports that are right in the middle of the switch's front panel (labeled by number). Of course, there are bigger (more port) versions available as well.
Four 10G SFP+ uplink ports are located on the right side of the ECS2512FP and are used to connect the switch to other switches, larger networks, or to trunk into a faster network at 10G speeds.
While the switch's sides are ventilated for cooling, the power connector is positioned on the switch's back panel, just the way we like it. The unit holds two fans, these operate independently from each other based on load/utilization of the switch.
