Switches for New Block

[fiza]

We are having a new block built attached to the side of the existing building. There will be a comms room in the new block which will contain a rack with 284 ports coming in from all the rooms in the new block. This comms cab will then have OM3 fibres going back to the Core Switch in the main building.

 

What is the consensus for switches? Should it be a Chassis Switch or 6 x 48 port stacked switches? The Core switch is an HP 5412zl Chassis switch. All the edge swtches are a mixture of various HP switches.

[Norphy]

Personally, I prefer chassis switches because there's only device and IP address to manage and there's no funkiness with stacking to take into consideration. Add to that, the 5400R is a full L3 switch while the 2920/2930 aren't and for that many ports, they generally come in at a similar price.

 

The disadvantage is that it's harder to keep the cabinets tidy with them, with 1U switches you can have a patch panel then a switch then a patch panel etc. With an arrangement like that, you can use short cables to wire things up and make it look nice. That said, that kind of assumes that every port that you're putting in is going to be live which isn't a particularly good idea.

 

In one of our schools, when we replaced the active networking kit, we went from more than 75 1U edge switches to nine edge switches. We're going to do be doing similar in another of our schools and potentially, we could get down to three switches from 60, although five is looking like the more likely number at the moment.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Norphy

[fiza]

Personally, I prefer chassis switches because there's only device and IP address to manage and there's no funkiness with stacking to take into consideration. Add to that, the 5400R is a full L3 switch while the 2920/2930 aren't and for that many ports, they generally come in at a similar price.

 

The disadvantage is that it's harder to keep the cabinets tidy with them, with 1U switches you can have a patch panel then a switch then a patch panel etc. With an arrangement like that, you can use short cables to wire things up and make it look nice. That said, that kind of assumes that every port that you're putting in is going to be live which isn't a particularly good idea.

 

Not every port will be live so may end up with only 150-180 live including a couple of IT Suites.

[localzuk]

If you're tied to HPE, then I'd say go Chasis, else if not I'd say look at Ubiquiti Unifi switches.

 

I'd hazard you'd only need a single PoE switch in there (as most places don't have that many PoE devices coming back to one spot), so 180 ports of Unifi switching would set you back about £1650, including a dedicated controller to manage them. They'd have 10GbE uplinks too.

 

Whereas a single HPE Aruba 2540 48G PoE+ switch is £1350.

[3s-gtech]

Hopefully it'll be OM4 rather than OM3 going in. Shouldn't impact the spec too much but no reason to be fitting OM3 now.

[PlantHead]

It will depend upon price and either a stacked or chassis will work well.

I would go stacked for redundancy, ease of upgrade and expandability - the additional admin overhead isn't that much of an issue.

Just put in the number of switch ports you need to cater for the live patch ports - if you need more ports in the future just add another switch

Edited May 15, 2019 by PlantHead

[fiza]

Hopefully it'll be OM4 rather than OM3 going in. Shouldn't impact the spec too much but no reason to be fitting OM3 now.

For OM4 would I have to get a new module for my existing 5412zl switch?

I have spare ports on the existing switch but these are currently working with OM3.

[fiza]

If you're tied to HPE, then I'd say go Chasis, else if not I'd say look at Ubiquiti Unifi switches.

 

I'd hazard you'd only need a single PoE switch in there (as most places don't have that many PoE devices coming back to one spot), so 180 ports of Unifi switching would set you back about £1650, including a dedicated controller to manage them. They'd have 10GbE uplinks too.

 

Whereas a single HPE Aruba 2540 48G PoE+ switch is £1350.

 

No issues with Ubiquiti Unifi switches and the Core HP switch talking to each other?

 

edit: Are the Unifi switches stackable? If not then I would need individual fibre cables going back to the core.

Edited May 15, 2019 by fiza

[3s-gtech]

For OM4 would I have to get a new module for my existing 5412zl switch? I have spare ports on the existing switch but these are currently working with OM3.

No. Most specs are identical to OM3, same transceivers.

[DrCheese]

edit: Are the Unifi switches stackable? If not then I would need individual fibre cables going back to the core.

 

Nope. It's why I can't use them either.

[fiza]

Nope. It's why I can't use them either.

 

That's a shame. Looked for a moment as if I could save the school some money!!

[localzuk]

No issues with Ubiquiti Unifi switches and the Core HP switch talking to each other?

Nope. Everything is based on standards and it all works fine.

edit: Are the Unifi switches stackable? If not then I would need individual fibre cables going back to the core.

No, but extra cores aren't expensive. A 16 core OM4 isn't much more than an 8 core etc...

 

There's no need for stacking at all with them - just slap 10GbE in to each from your core. If you don't have the SFP+ ports at the core, slap in a 16 port 10GbE Unifi switch too (they're not very expensive).

 

Management is via a single web system, so you don't need them to be stacked for management purposes either.

Edited May 15, 2019 by localzuk

[Norphy]

Nope. Everything is based on standards and it all works fine.

 

No, but extra cores aren't expensive. A 16 core OM4 isn't much more than an 8 core etc...

 

Extra cores aren't expensive but extra SFP+ ports in a core switch most certainly are. An older 5412zl might not have the capacity on the backplane for more 10gbe ports either.

[localzuk]

Extra cores aren't expensive but extra SFP+ ports in a core switch most certainly are. An older 5412zl might not have the capacity on the backplane for more 10gbe ports either.

I suppose it could be, but then if that's the case, why not daisy chain the switches together? If you're reliant on limited connectivity at the core, then you're not getting the bandwidth gains from stacking, so its just the management advantages, which Unifi gives you anyway.

[Primus]

So as @localzuk says you could stick in a top of rack 16 port 10Gb Unifi switch and uplink via that.

[localzuk]

So as @localzuk says you could stick in a top of rack 16 port 10Gb Unifi switch and uplink via that.

Yup. Or just connect each one to the next. Would save you a packet too, and if your core is limited in SFP+ ports doing it this way won't make that much difference to you.

[ThomL]

Nope. Everything is based on standards and it all works fine.

 

No, but extra cores aren't expensive. A 16 core OM4 isn't much more than an 8 core etc...

 

There's no need for stacking at all with them - just slap 10GbE in to each from your core. If you don't have the SFP+ ports at the core, slap in a 16 port 10GbE Unifi switch too (they're not very expensive).

 

Management is via a single web system, so you don't need them to be stacked for management purposes either.

This has a lot of merit - I think it's the way I would go. Previously I've picked up an edgeswitch 16 xg just to act as a dedicated S2D cluster switch and I believe it cost less than £300 at the time.

 

....£300 for 16 * 10 GbE.... - crazy. Although from my reading the switch is saturated at 50% capacity, but thats still a lot of switch for the money.

[localzuk]

It is *very* unlikely that you'd saturate a 10Gbps link, let alone a whole switch full of them. We have 6 schools coming back to our core here and we don't even saturate 1Gbps.

[bwestlake]

Have a look at UniFi kit, cloud management is so nice, we use them for switches when doing NaaS for our clients

[fiza]

Extra cores aren't expensive but extra SFP+ ports in a core switch most certainly are. An older 5412zl might not have the capacity on the backplane for more 10gbe ports either.

 

At the moment there are 8 x 10G uplinks in use. The switch has 4 existing spare 10G ports and also an empty slot where another 10G module could go.

According to my Google-fu the switch has a backplane speed of 346 Gbps. So still plenty of scope for expansion?

[ITGURU]

D-Link no longer do Core chassis switches. They got for 'top of rack' switches. Just upgrading a HP 5406ZL Chassis to a new 4 x D-Link stack of switches which to me does seem better option as offers more redundancy if a switch fails, rather than a whole chassis.

[localzuk]

D-Link no longer do Core chassis switches. They got for 'top of rack' switches. Just upgrading a HP 5406ZL Chassis to a new 4 x D-Link stack of switches which to me does seem better option as offers more redundancy if a switch fails, rather than a whole chassis.

It is very rare for an entire chassis to die - but every other component can be installed in a redundant manner (controller, psu etc...). The chassis itself is a box with some connectors.

[ITGURU]

It is very rare for an entire chassis to die - but every other component can be installed in a redundant manner (controller, psu etc...). The chassis itself is a box with some connectors.

 

But they usually have a management slot or controller slot..

[Disease]

Don't you have to pay an annual license for the Cloud management of the Ubiquiti devices?

 

Also the throughput and switching capacities are greater on the Aruba/HPE kit, you gets what you pay for.

[Norphy]

But they usually have a management slot or controller slot..

 

Yes but the 5400R and 8400 both have the capability to install redundant management controllers.