D-LINK
At the end of every year, we’ll look up and find some ‘momentous’ occasions to either celebrate or analyse. For the year 1986, the average person would be forgiven for describing it as ‘disastrous’. Whether it be the Space Shuttle Challenger, Chernobyl, or the appointment of Sir Alex Ferguson as manager of Manchester United, I think the vast majority would look back at the year as a year to forget. At the headquarters of D-Link in Taipei, though, 1986 is a year to celebrate as one of the most recognisable names in networking hardware. Originally founded as Datex Systems, the company helped bring computer networking into homes and small businesses at a time when connecting multiple computers was still a specialist task. Since then, D-Link has built its reputation by producing affordable and accessible networking equipment, ranging from Ethernet adapters and hubs in the late 1980s and 1990s to switches, routers, wireless access points, IP cameras and smart home devices. Some of the most popular D-Link products have reflected major shifts in networking technology. In the 1990s, its DES-series Ethernet switches and network adapters helped businesses transition to faster local area networks. Today, D-Link has expanded into cloud- connected products and is also interested in mesh Wi-Fi systems, Wi-Fi 6 and 5G routers, industrial networking solutions, and AI-powered networking products. “The approach to managing both wired and wireless devices, even across that last kind of eight or nine years, has shifted dramatically,” said Robert Jenkins, Channel Sales Manager at D-Link. “Everything was previously very siloed; you’d have maybe a physical wireless controller sat on the network, and then your switches might be managed physically via the serial port or using CLI or telnet down the line.
“Nuclias Unity applies those decades of combined hardware knowledge to manage both infrastructures under a single centralised cloud interface. We also have Nuclias Connect for customers that would prefer a hosted cloud approach, whether that be software or hardware driven, but that essentially gives our partners the flexibility and choice to adapt the solution to whatever best meets their customers’ needs.” Bringing Everything Together Closing in on a decade at D-Link, Jenkins is in a better position than most to comment on the way the company has changed recently, having been there for “about a quarter of the journey, which is quite impressive when I say it out loud”. Coinciding with the anniversary, D-Link launched Nuclias Unity, a true cloud, license-free network management platform that provides a single pane of glass to configure, monitor, and troubleshoot its smart/managed switches and Wi‑Fi 6 and 7 access points across single or multi-site environments. Aimed at SMBs through to large enterprises and the public sector, it supports partners and end users, with or without on-site IT, via zero-touch provisioning, cloud templates, bulk management, and proactive monitoring tools.
Robert Jenkins Channel Sales Manager
dlink.com
CONTINUED
ucadvanced.com
33
Powered by FlippingBook