Unifi Switching

[steveg]

Just looking at a switch refresh and Unifi seems to offer great value, especially as we are already Unifi for our wireless network which doesn't yet need replacing.

 

The biggest issue I can see with Unifi is the lack of stacking.

 

Those that have Unifi already, may I ask what models you have gone for and how are they interconnected? Did you go for a central aggregate switch, did you include any redundancy in the links?

[rogerdnixon]

The latest switches at the top end do support stacking. We have one site with two of their Campus Aggregations at the core and they are stacked together. Then a fibre link - one from each switch going to firewalls/switches etc. Their other Campus range also support stacking if you need it beyond the core and your pockets are deep.... Anyways - was super easy to setup and seems to work great.

[Primus]

Just looking at a switch refresh and Unifi seems to offer great value, especially as we are already Unifi for our wireless network which doesn't yet need replacing.

 

The biggest issue I can see with Unifi is the lack of stacking.

 

Those that have Unifi already, may I ask what models you have gone for and how are they interconnected? Did you go for a central aggregate switch, did you include any redundancy in the links?

 

With the UI for Unifi being web based stacking isn't an issue we've ever had - you can still give them redundant links and let spanning tree take care of disabling the redundant one until its needed.

[steveg]

Is that the ECS-Aggregation ones? I did look at those, but at £6k for 2 of them that's most of our budget for the project! I think they are currently the only ones that support MC-LAG aren't they?

 

Would be a great way to put full redundancy into the core, as all the switches and server can have redundant links to each of them, but does considerably add to the budget.

[steveg]

With the UI for Unifi being web based stacking isn't an issue we've ever had - you can still give them redundant links and let spanning tree take care of disabling the redundant one until its needed.

 

Did you just daisy chain them and link back round the last one, or go to a central aggregation switch?

[Primus]

Did you just daisy chain them and link back round the last one, or go to a central aggregation switch?

 

We directly feed each and then use a DAC uplink between them for resilience - STP takes care of it.

[FN-GM]

With the UI for Unifi being web based stacking isn't an issue we've ever had - you can still give them redundant links and let spanning tree take care of disabling the redundant one until its needed.

 

You already know this, but for others if you stacked you can use LACP and take advantage of more bandwidth. The links can be active / active rather than active / standby. Although this might not be required, but could be handy when imaging large numbers of endpoints such as an IT suite.

Edited January 24, 2025 by FN-GM

[Primus]

You already know this, but for others if you stacked you can use LACP and take advantage of more bandwidth. The links can be active / active rather than active / standby. Although this might not be required, but could be handy when imaging large numbers of endpoints such as an IT suite.

 

True, however I don’t think we’ve ever maxed out a 10Gb uplink even when imaging. That said imaging is getting less and less relevant these days.

 

Unifi does support LACP if you need it however.

[steveg]

We directly feed each and then use a DAC uplink between them for resilience - STP takes care of it.

 

Directly feed from where?

[Primus]

Directly feed from where?

 

The core - our Unifi switches are our edge/access switches.

[PotNoodleTech]

Back in the old days when stacking didn't exist just trunk ports with all the vlans on either 2 to 4 x 1GB ports in th really old days or 2 to 4 x 10GB ports on newer kit. Should be fine. I never had an issue with trunked "uplink" ports as I called them. Stacking seems to be something that was created just to sell £150 cables.

[Oaktech]

Back in the old days when stacking didn't exist just trunk ports with all the vlans on either 2 to 4 x 1GB ports in th really old days or 2 to 4 x 10GB ports on newer kit. Should be fine. I never had an issue with trunked "uplink" ports as I called them. Stacking seems to be something that was created just to sell £150 cables.

 

^^ This.

 

Stacking has caused me far more problems than Link Agg and STP.

[steveg]

The core - our Unifi switches are our edge/access switches.

 

Thanks, are you using another brand of switch as the core?

[Primus]

Thanks, are you using another brand of switch as the core?

 

Yes Aruba 5406r ZL2 and 5412r ZL2.

[DWilson1997]

At my previous school we ran full UniFi with AP's and switches. It worked well for the scale and size of the site and rarely had issues for the price point. I did what others have said and trunked the SFP+ ports back to what was a UAG-AGG switch (I think?) at the time. For the needs of the school this worked perfectly.

 

I think it all depends on what you need out of your network. Here, we needed something truly enterprise grade to meet our business requirements so opted for Cisco. However as Ubiquiti develop the enterprise range that could be a contender in the future.

[Davit2005]

^^ This.

 

Stacking has caused me far more problems than Link Agg and STP.

 

Really :-) We've had stacks for 7 years plus with no issues :-)

Edited January 27, 2025 by Davit2005

[Oaktech]

Really :-) We've had stacks for 7 years plus with no issues :-)

 

Yup... I've had stacking issues with Extreme, Black Ice and Netgear that have required vendor intervention, but I've never an LACP issue that I couldn't attribute to an easily correctible misconfiguration!

 

MikroTik is also a bit of a learning curve. But for the price......

Hard Agree!

[FN-GM]

Yup... I've had stacking issues with Extreme, Black Ice and Netgear that have required vendor intervention, but I've never an LACP issue that I couldn't attribute to an easily correctible misconfiguration!

 

Hard Agree!

 

Stacking is a vendor proprietary thing and varies between vendor. LACP is an industry standard and will (well should) be identical across the board.

 

I have stacked mostly in Cisco and it’s been flawless.

[PotNoodleTech]

I have stacked mostly in Cisco and it’s been flawless.

 

Don't try the same with Aruba or your proud 100% uptime just won't be quite the same any more.

 

*misses cisco and procurve kit*

[Davit2005]

Don't try the same with Aruba or your proud 100% uptime just won't be quite the same any more.

 

*misses cisco and procurve kit*

 

We use Aruba 2930's in loads of areas, most are 8 switches per stack with some been 4 due to them been setup before the VSF change with firmware.

 

Also 2 locations with 5406 in a VSF admitedly I don't think we have these setup as LACP yet.

 

I have setup 4 Aruba CX in a VSF stack in a lab with LACP uplinks and had no issues though :-)

[psydii]

the 2930's 5406's are basically procurve though.

[PotNoodleTech]

6300m's here - run by the LA though so I don't have full (any) control over them. I'd happily chuck them all 40 in the bin and go back to Cisco/Old Proper Procurve/Unifi tomorrow :/

[PotNoodleTech]

the 2930's 5406's are basically procurve though.

 

Yes true they're not aruba really as they existed years before Aruba existed. 2930 were solid for me too with a 5412zl as core. Those were the days.

[Davit2005]

Been so long since I've relied on any 3rd party for admin of firewalls or switches. I don't think I could go bac to the days of waiting 3 months for the LA to make a firewall change, lol.

[psydii]

I also enjoy messing around in wireshark and have a historic interest in filtering proxies (trying to roll my own while the original patches to squid were being developed by people over at rm / pavilion - i think predating dansguardian too?), but since 2011 I'm a huge fan of LGfL, and they have got really good at the firewall change request / troubleshooting piece in the last decade,. I love that side of things being "not my problem", and when we do have an issue, it feels like working with a specialist who is part of the team!

 

But bak on topic, with the higher end (non-unifi) switches, one can poke around arp tables and do remote port mirroring (analysing network traffice in wireshark etc) control spanning tree propogation and dig deep into what the switches are doing. This is very handy every so often for troubleshooting oddness (finding that switch that decides it wants spanning tree recalcuted randomly) and identifying configuration drift (e.g. cameras on the BMS vlan), or proving that that random box in the basement is not sending valid network traffic to its server... I 've only had a little play with some low end unifi kit but it seems that some of this diagnostic capability is not available? Is this right, or is it all there in the higher end stuff?