Switches

[Badaz52]

What is everyone using for Switches? Bulk of ours are old procurve which I was upgrading to Cisco until I heard about their recent price increases and the fact that you have to buy an annual subscription so I'm not sure what to go for now.

[Primus]

HPE/Aruba at the core, Ubiquiti Unifi at the edge.

[kingoranks]

We are on old procurve (V1910-48G) too looking to start upgrading some that are now struggling- lots of excessive broadcast and high collusion

[timbo343]

We are looking to upgrade some of our old 2650 and 2510 switches and have got pricing for:

- HP Aruba 1960 48port non PoE - circa £775 - The PoE version is circa £1700

- HP Aruba 6100 48port non PoE - circa £1400

 

I'm tempted to go for the 1960 series but told they are for Small Offices / Coffee Shops which made me doubt it yet they have a good write up

[Cat_Jam148]

UniFi all the way here

 

Have been running them for just over 4 years now

[kingoranks]

@timbo343 why are you buying non POE, dont you have cameras and voip phones? We are looking at 2930 series

[Disease]

HPE/Aruba.

 

5406R Zl2 V3 Core

 

2530/2540 Edge switches

[timbo343]

@timbo343 why are you buying non POE, dont you have cameras and voip phones? We are looking at 2930 series

 

Most of the cameras are on different switches away from our network and the very few cameras we have, use PoE injectors.

 

As for the VoIP phones, depending on which area in school they are cabled back to, some have PoE switches otherwise we run with PoE Injectors. Budgets here are a massive problem.

 

I looked at the 2930 series and these were more expensive than the 6100 series.

[Jonah]

5406 at the core, 2930F/M at the edge

[CyBeRkId2002]

We have just purchased some 6100's for the edge (combination of PoE and Non-PoE) and a pair of 6300 SFP's for the core / aggregation.

 

Kitted out a couple of cabs with the 6100's this week and so far, so good! Will be nice to get the 6300's in for the 10gb Backbone and uplinks to our switches but they are on backorder. I did do A LOT of research and settled on Aruba against:

 

Refurb - The temptation for the same performance at around half the price was strong, but to get a significant cost saving we would be looking at kit that was already 5-7 years old.

Cisco - Wanted to stay away from a licenced model

Unifi - strongly considered this but the warranty when compared to Aruba was a bit of a deal breaker. That, and the fact that I have had some quirks with Unifi in the past put me off slightly. Again cost saving was definitely there, but when I look at TCO over a 7 - 10 year period (which is generally what I am hoping for) it wasn't night and day.

[Aprice]

The new kit we're putting in is mostly Aruba

Usually 5406 at the core with dual management modules, PSU etc

2930M at the edge or the newer 6200 / 6100 series

 

Ubiquiti would then be our alternate option if budgets are really squeezed. That said we have had a few blown PSUs over the years, mostly on the ToughSwitch 150w and two of the original Unifi switches. I tend to prefer the edgemax stuff over Unifi.

 

I do like the Cisco kit but it's increasingly difficult to justify when firmware updates are effectively behind a paywall. I don't think it really offers anything better than Aruba either for schools.

[ozydave]

2 x 5406 at the core and procurve 2930 at the edge. Great kit. All installed in 2013.

Only just recently had a 2930 die.

Contacted HP and they swapped it for an Aruba straight away with their lifetime warranty.

 

I'm not going anywhere else for switching