Switches

[Optimus_Primal]

My switches are 100mbps and I am trying to plan when to upgrade them.

What is your personal preference for switches?

[howartp]

Most of ours are 100mb with 1GB uplinks.

 

We put Wifi across school about 8 years ago and put POE 1GB switches in key cabs at that point; APs, IP Phones and Paxton therefore get 1GB by default.

 

This year I've budgeted to put POE 1GB in the remaining cabs, either 8, 12 or 24 ports, and swap around some of the HP 2524 switches that have SC Fibre transceivers with other switches that take LC fibre 1GB ethernet ports so I can reverse the stack in some locations.

[Primus]

If you're on a budget (as your signature indicates) the Ubiquiti Unifi is spot on for both switches and WiFi APs.

 

The standard (v1) switches in 48 port format come with dual SFP+ ports(for 10Gb) plus dual SFP (1Gb) and 48 RJ45 copper ports. They come in PoE and non-PoE versions.

 

At the core we went with 2 HP 5940s as even as quite a big fan of Unifi their products didn't fit our requirements for the core but at the edge they're great and cheap!

[TechMonkey]

We have HP (now Aruba) switches and they have done well by us. We went for POE+ throughout to ensure we had flexibility for future projects and it has been a godsend for things like phones, CCTV and the ability to just get things done when, as ever, things have been thrown at us last minute.

[mavhc]

Depends on the layout of your network, every wire going to a central point, or multiple small cabinets with one central cabinet?

 

How much Power Over Ethernet do you plan to have in the future?

 

What are your links between cabinets?

[Chaniel]

Can't imagine having 100MB switches only in 2020!

 

I personally stick to HP for the school, they're pretty inexpensive, web-managed (no CLI for the 1920 switches) but have a nice lifetime warranty which I've had to use in a couple of cases. Out of the 100+ HP switches I've looked after in a few schools, I've only had to warranty replace about 2 and it was a case of explaining the issue to HP and they sent out a replacement next day.

[mavhc]

HP: Limited lifetime: For products purchased after November 1st, 2019, the warranty extends only for as long as the original end user owns the product, up through five (5) years after the end of sale date. You may be required to provide proof of purchase of lease as a condition of receiving warranty service. Select products may require registration of your product (serial number and contact information)

 

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c02707631

[mavhc]

Can't imagine having 100MB switches only in 2020!

 

I personally stick to HP for the school, they're pretty inexpensive, web-managed (no CLI for the 1920 switches) but have a nice lifetime warranty which I've had to use in a couple of cases. Out of the 100+ HP switches I've looked after in a few schools, I've only had to warranty replace about 2 and it was a case of explaining the issue to HP and they sent out a replacement next day.

 

Given everyone seems to be moving all their data to the cloud there's little point in having more than a 10Mb switch nowadays.

 

My main problem is when trying to connect 2 different makes of switches with vlans, always seems harder than it should be, eg HP to Cisco. Then again my last problem was Cisco to Cisco didn't even work

[Wubbalubbadub]

I have personally always preferred HP Switches, however i have started introducing Unify switches in the primary schools, as i like the remote management of them.

 

I always go for 1GB switches though. I don't think 100mb should be allowed in this day and age! Here we have 1GB to clients with 10GB up-link.

[TechMonkey]

Given everyone seems to be moving all their data to the cloud there's little point in having more than a 10Mb switch nowadays.

 

... I'm sorry what?

[Chaniel]

HP: Limited lifetime: For products purchased after November 1st, 2019, the warranty extends only for as long as the original end user owns the product, up through five (5) years after the end of sale date. You may be required to provide proof of purchase of lease as a condition of receiving warranty service. Select products may require registration of your product (serial number and contact information)

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c02707631

Even with the change post November 2019, it's still a pretty good warranty as the end of sale date tends to be quite a while after you buy the device. I hope not to have all the same switches in 10 years!

 

Given everyone seems to be moving all their data to the cloud there's little point in having more than a 10Mb switch nowadays.

My main problem is when trying to connect 2 different makes of switches with vlans, always seems harder than it should be, eg HP to Cisco. Then again my last problem was Cisco to Cisco didn't even work

 

I don't quite follow your train of thought here... you're still going to need switches with a decent throughput with both local servers or cloud servers. Otherwise you're limiting your PCs to 10Mb connectivity...

 

With the VLANs, I've never run into an issue (we have a couple of Cisco/Netgear/TP-Link switches as well as a bulk of HP), just found you have to understand the terminology differences (e.g. a Trunk in Cisco world is a port with multiple VLANs, whereas in HP land a trunk is multiple ports being used for redundancy/bandwidth)

[FragglePete]

I have still have a lot of 100Mbps switches with 1Gb uplinks - all HP Procurve that just seems to run and run. Network performs quite well here overall. Obviously I would like to upgrade, and have added newer HP switches which are 1Gbps with either trunked 1Gbps uplinks or in a couple of places 10Gb uplinks where we've added connectivity. But, to do the rest would require a major upgrade to our core switch which I just don't have the budget for at present.

 

Bit by bit I will update.

 

Pete

[Boredguy]

Given everyone seems to be moving all their data to the cloud there's little point in having more than a 10Mb switch nowadays.

Err, logic fault detected.

a) No 10Mb switches exists (or shouldn't!)

b) most AP's have 1Gb NIC's to support all the clients connected at a reasonable speed, so you need at least 1Gb switches, and maybe 10Gb backbone in select areas

 

We generally use Netgear Smart Switches at 1Gb through the entire site (and that is about 36 switches ranging from 8 port to 52 port) all with vLans. Only thing we're missing is a layer 3 switch, but it's on the wish list for when we win a lottery.

[localzuk]

We used to go with HPE Aruba, but these days? All switch purchases are Ubiquiti Unifi.

 

48 port 1Gbps, 4 port SFP+ (10Gbps), 500W POE for £580? Compared to £1340 for the HPE Aruba 2540 JL357A.

[mavhc]

... I'm sorry what?

 

You have more than 10Mbps internet connectivity per concurrent computer user?

[DJ-1701]

You have more than 10Mbps internet connectivity per concurrent computer user?

 

Come now, we all know computers utilise as much of the bandwidth for tasks as possible, it makes tasks go faster. We're in 2020.

[localzuk]

You have more than 10Mbps internet connectivity per concurrent computer user?

Don't make the mistake that many do of looking at average usage and using that as the guide for what size switches are a good idea. Peaks are more important in schools - as we regularly have huge numbers of people doing a task suddenly and at the same time.

 

Realistically, these days, your edge switches are having to do a variety of tasks - connecting client PCs, running APs etc... So, you have to look at the needs of your heaviest using connected device, which will be your APs. Which will easily saturate a 1Gbps link if you have a lot of wireless connected devices. There's quite a few APs on the market that use 2.5Gbps ports now.

 

In reality, these days, the choice are switches with 1Gbps ports and 1Gbps SFP ports, of 1Gbps ports and 10Gbps SFP+ ports. 100Mbps ports are outdated and I don't think HPE Aruba even sell any managed switches with that spec any more.

[TechMonkey]

You have more than 10Mbps internet connectivity per concurrent computer user?

You restrict your users to a fixed bandwidth decided by net pipe divided by devices?

[PlantHead]

We use HP/Aruba switches and are in the process of upgrading our links to 10Gbps - I am not sure a 1Gbps switch can be justified except in extreme cases.

HP switches are pretty easy to use and configure, never had many problems and the warranty is still pretty great.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

How about a few of these?

 

ICT Direct: UK's leading computer refurbisher for Schools and Public Sector - ICT Direct

[Andycat]

Due to a previous BSF project, we're full Cisco here besides a Dell Core. Whilst we wouldn't have been able to afford it ourselves, we're keeping them and they've been solid for 8 years.

[Chris_Cook]

In the past I've always found HP a good compromise on cost and ease of use. I'm now a big fan of Unifi. It makes the configuration stupidly easy. We've had our fair share of issues with netgear so we avoid them now. Mostly this was because of the number of different models we had.

 

The 1910 and 1920 switches do have a hidden command line. Can't remember how much you can do with it though.

 

https://support.nextstepinnovation.com/knowledgebase.php?article=34

[PyROm]

I believe the v1910 switch was a re-branded 3com switch form when HP brought them out.

[Optimus_Primal]

Due to a previous BSF project, we're full Cisco here besides a Dell Core. Whilst we wouldn't have been able to afford it ourselves, we're keeping them and they've been solid for 8 years.

 

What bandwidth are your switches?

 

We have Cisco aswell as part of the BSF 9 years ago. We have a 10gb back bone with 100mbps to desktops.

[BKGarry]

As another school that was in BSF, we had a 1gbps backbone and 100mbos to client.

 

I replaced all of our stuff with Unifi kit, switches the lot, now there is 1gbps to client, and a 10gbps backbone, with a HP Aruba for intervlan Routing.