Redundant Network Switches

[DrummerBoy]

I am looking for network switches to setup a fully redundant network, so that is one switch fails another automaticlly kicks in.

 

Does anyone have experieince in this area, or recommendations for switches to put on my 'look at' list?

[featured_spectre]

If you can afford it, juniper switches

[Soulfish]

Juniper switches as nephilim says. We've got a load here and they're great .

 

If you've got the cash EX8208's/EX8216's with appropriate modules and when it's available the XRE200 to combine them all into working as one big switch. That way you get redundancy at the chassis level, and then redundant chassis. Of course it also takes lots of £££££££.

 

A cheaper alternative would be running EX4200's (or EX4500's if you need lots of 10GbE!) in a virtual chassis. Just ensure that whatever your connecting up has two+ links plugged into separate physical EX's, bonded in someway. The virtual chassis makes the separate switches work as one so if one fails it won't be a problem. They're also great switches to work with. Within our network we run two EX8208's at the core (not in a virtual chassis unfortunately!) that are interconnected. All edge switch stacks (EX4200's in a virtual chassis config) connect back to both EX8208's in the core. If one of the cores fails, or if one of the redundant fibre paths fails everything fails over to the alternatives. Quite nice to watch it all working as you pull the power/reboot and see everything still work

[nicholab]

Can be done with Cisco 3750x in a stack or two Procurve 5400

 

You would also need stand by routing in operation.

Edited February 3, 2011 by nicholab

[SYNACK]

Anything fully managed that supports STP (Spanning Tree Protocol) should do it but better brands tend to lead to better results.

[nicholab]

Spanning tree is a layer 2 only so for layer 3 you will need Hot Standby Router Protocol

[cpjitservices]

Nortel 5500 Series Switches they are Layer 2/3 and as cheap as chips but really reliable!!!!!!!!!!