Recent network switch replacement quotes?

[nikaso]

I'm wanting to give some ballpark costings in a meeting with SLT about replacing our aging switch fleet.

 

Looking at about 30 switches required, all 48 port, 7 of which should have 2x10gb fibre modules.

 

12 of the 30 need to be PoE.

 

Does anyone have any recent quotes for anything similar?

[DrBeaker]

One of ours was a 3-4x year programme of switch replacements due to the sheer cost which wasn't cheap. I think there was an awful lot of noughts in the final bill.

[Norphy]

Do you really need 1300 active ports??? Even our biggest secondary barely exceeds 850.

[Steve21]

Always interested to see some prices too, Got 62 switches that replacement was due a fair few years back by the state of this network! Go go 10/100s!

 

Steve

[DrBeaker]

Always interested to see some prices too, Got 62 switches that replacement was due a fair few years back by the state of this network! Go go 10/100s!

 

Steve

 

I'm amazed at how cheap some of these NICS at 10Gbps for PCs seem to be these days.

 

There are still some 10/100 Mbps hubs around in some areas.

 

Apparently 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps is going to hit the home market sooner than 10Gbps is. 4x port NIC teamed at 5Gbps each for 20Gbps on a home network would be impressive.

[ITGURU]

A year ago i replaced 20 switches with D-Link DGS-1510-52X 48 gigabit port swiches and 4x 1000/10gb sfp ports at £380 a piece.

[mrwoberts]

Recently replaced a few switches, at different sites, with the UniFi switches 48port and 24 port (POE), partly because we are using UniFi APs...

Totally regretting it now. We barely had any issues with the very old Netgear Prosafe ones we ripped out and since the UniFi switches have been installed we've had various network issues. Quite possibly due to the consistently buggy software/controller stuff that UniFi send out the door - that's another story.

 

They might be cheaper, but after this experience I would struggle to recommend them to anyone.

 

"If it ain't broke... don't break it."

[geohanson]

I’ve been gradually replacing our ageing Allied Telesis switches with Aruba 2530 and 2930F models.

If I remember correctly we’ve been paying around £550 for the 2530 (48 port/gigabit/non PoE) and around £1500 for 2930F (24 port/10GB uplinks/PoE)

I think we got a small discount for purchasing 20+ switches at the same time.

 

Not cheap, but they’re easy to configure (I prefer them to the Allied and Netgear), have a lifetime warranty, and network performance has improved greatly since installing them - then again we were moving from 10/100 switches so most things would have been an improvement!

I considered UniFi switches, but ideally wanted something that would be stackable and that’s why we are using the 2930F in some locations.

 

Netgears are okay if you can cope with the not so great GUI... Probably cheaper than Aruba and also have a lifetime warranty.

 

We also have a few newer Allied Telesis (X510 and X550). These are okay, and use Cisco CLI, but there are some annoying quirks in the GUI that will wipe out VLAN 1 tags when changing other VLANs...... Not very helpful when that happens in the middle of the day.... Allied have acknowledged the bug, but you have to have a paid support contract in order to get any firmware updates....

[Norphy]

I think we got a small discount for purchasing 20+ switches at the same time.

 

 

When you’re buying that many Aruba switches at a time, you’re better going to an HPE partner and getting them to negotiate a price with HPE. The discounts you get are significant, up to 40% off list sometimes.

Edited September 18, 2020 by Norphy

[3s-gtech]

Out LEA recently bulk-bought Aruba switches with significant discounts - you’re talking hundreds of units, mind. The kit is lovely though.

[southhamster]

We use all Cisco SG300 and whilst not cheap we got good pricing from Insight. The oldest are ?8 years old but all have 100% reliable. The only switch we have trouble with is little 8 port one connecting the BMS which blows up every 2 or 3 years (no room for anything bigger).

[mdrabble]

Replaced our old Netgear with a mixture of UniFi EdgeMax Lites POE and non POE versions. - 31 in total.

 

Not had any issues with them and been using them for 3 years now.

 

48 port versions have 2 x 1 SFP and 2 x 10GB SFP as standard

 

Strangely the 24 and 16 port versions on have 2 x 1GB SFP

 

There is a version of NMS you can use but you cannot centrally managed them apart from deploying updating and rebooting them.

 

Any config changes to switches need to be done on the individual switch such as VLAN configs etc.

 

Opted for EdgeMax Lites as i didn’t need or want cloud management as I understoood the UniFi (white ones)could only be managed by cloud management.

 

If you need stackage switches then don’t do for these as there is not stackable options.

Edited September 18, 2020 by mdrabble

[Net-Ctrl]

Please let us know if you would like to see a Ruckus ICX and/or Allied Telesis quotation for the requirement. We have installed both at a number of EDU sites around the country. Good discounts available on both at the moment.

 

On the Ruckus front you get lifetime warranty that included NDB replacement of any failed units, including lifetime software updates.

[3s-gtech]

On the topic of Cisco SG300s - PM me if these switches would meet your needs. I have a number of 26 and 50 port 1Gb ones, plus possibly a few 10 port PoE, available. There may also be 1Gb SFPs available (they’re compatible with quite a few models including HP).

[Primus]

Recently replaced a few switches, at different sites, with the UniFi switches 48port and 24 port (POE), partly because we are using UniFi APs...

Totally regretting it now. We barely had any issues with the very old Netgear Prosafe ones we ripped out and since the UniFi switches have been installed we've had various network issues. Quite possibly due to the consistently buggy software/controller stuff that UniFi send out the door - that's another story.

 

They might be cheaper, but after this experience I would struggle to recommend them to anyone.

 

"If it ain't broke... don't break it."

 

If you document the issues someone might be able to help you fix them.

 

We have loads of Unifi switches and zero problems.

[Zammo]

Do you really need 1300 active ports??? Even our biggest secondary barely exceeds 850.

 

I can see a few reasons:

 

Lots of small cabs - I once worked in a school that had 15 separate cabinets. Some only served 4 or 5 devices but the way the school was laid out (one long thin building, lots of smaller outbuildings) would have made re-cabling a nightmare. So lots of small cabs with a few biggies in the tech. block

 

OP may also work across multiple schools

[FN-GM]

I am currently deploying around 70 Cisco 9200L switches. They are great. Got a good price. They are very universal. You can add stacking modules and second power supplies at a later date.

 

We have replacing a whole mix of switches. Older Cisco, D-Link, Netgear, HP Procurve, HPE and Aruba are just a few.

 

The Aruba switches are around 3 years old and they have been reasonably good switches. No complaints.

[AJWhite1970]

I've got 60 unifi switches in cabinets and 3 unifi xg-16's at the core all linked by 10Gb for the last 3 years and not had a moments issue with them.

 

However I appreciate that Unifi is a bit marmite but bang for buck it's good kit. I also have 80 unifi AP'S and 45 unifi cctv cameras so no possibility of cross manufacturer issues either

[localzuk]

Been running Unifi switches across our Trust for a couple of years. Not had any issues with them really. Not to thy extent that I feel like u should have paid triple the price for a competitor's product anyway!

 

I managed to refresh the switchgear in 5 schools for the budget I had planned for just one of them when I was looking at HP Aruba.

[caffrey]

Unifi too, although I'm not quite sure about the gen 2 ones yet

[Steve21]

Out of curiosity for all the Unifi users, have you noticed any downsides with them compared to "normal" brands as such?

 

I know a fair few on here mentioned they aren't using them as cores and still buying a chassis/stack to do this etc but is that due to the L3 abilities (pre-gen2) more than reliability?

 

With 62 switches to replace, it's obviously a huge difference in pricing between the brands, but always a bit concerned with doing such a huge change and finding issues that will be deemed "buying cheap" etc

 

Many thanks,

Steve

[FN-GM]

Out of curiosity for all the Unifi users, have you noticed any downsides with them compared to "normal" brands as such?

 

I know a fair few on here mentioned they aren't using them as cores and still buying a chassis/stack to do this etc but is that due to the L3 abilities (pre-gen2) more than reliability?

 

With 62 switches to replace, it's obviously a huge difference in pricing between the brands, but always a bit concerned with doing such a huge change and finding issues that will be deemed "buying cheap" etc

 

Many thanks,

Steve

 

I looked at them but they had missing features that I needed.

 

Off top of my head a few were:

 

Stacking

DHCP Snooping

Dynamic ARP Inspection

Automatic Error Disable Recovery

BPDU Guard

 

I did go unifi wireless and it’s been a good experience so far.