Netgear Prosafe layer 3 switches - cost effective or put my money elsewhere?

[camel]

Hi,

 

I'm looking to improve our school's network infrastructure. Starting at the core, I have both the HP 5406zl and the Netgear Prosafe GSM7352S-200 in mind.

 

Both HP and Netgear provide lifetime warranties on these particular models. The netgear solution being 3x cheaper.

 

I'm tempted to go for the Netgear solution due to the fact that it has integrated 10Gb SFP+ ports, and 4 SFP ports, full layer 3 capabilities, 48x 1Gb copper, stacking capability with 48Gb redundant ring (additional modules, but the costs are so small compared). Also, Netgear's network management solution is very cost effective on comparison.

 

The HP is what most have and swear by it, and if money were not too much an issue then that would be my clear choice, but the features and price of the Netgear option look to good to ignore.

 

Brief current network setup;

• HP 4104gl at core (to move from core by either option)
  
• mix of 20 (HP and 3Com) switches around site
  
• 300 PCs, Macs and laptops (72:8:20)
  
• OM1 fiber between buildings (to be replaced by OM3)
  
• will be a full star network, currently some daisy chaines in place.
  

 

What are your opinions on the Netgear option as a viable alternative?

[SYNACK]

If their purchasing support is anything like it is in New Zealand run in the opposite direction from anything Netgear offers you, it is a trap and a rip off.

[featured_spectre]

Why not go to 3com. Its owned by HP, and doesnt have the rip off pricing HP offers. 2 models (1 HP, 1 3com) which were identical in every respect, had big price difference, yet they had the same warranty and support cover.

[mounters]

I've got a core stack that consists of GSM7352S-200, GSM7328S-200 and a GSM7352S-V1 and have no problems with them. Performance is good, they are easy to manage and as you state the price point is low for these when compared to other manufacturers.

 

I think that a lot of people see the Netgear name and get a bit of snobbery and just think that they only do home netowrking kit or they've been burnt by a cheap home router and this devalues the brand for them.

[SYNACK]

My responce is not in regard to their low level gear but rather their enterprise gear and their mistreatment of the NZ market and consumers.

[mounters]

My responce is not in regard to their low level gear but rather their enterprise gear and their mistreatment of the NZ market and consumers.

 

Whilst that may be the case in NZ, I've personally had no such problems here.

[SYNACK]

Whilst that may be the case in NZ, I've personally had no such problems here.

 

Exactly they may not be such douche bags to you guys at the moment but they certainly have the potential to be.

[camel]

Thanks for the repsonses so far, 3Com i thought were integrated into HP but, HP still seem to be running the 3Com product line separately as nephilim suggests.

 

Support is the main concern I have, as is the products capability. It would be interesting to know what kind of experience that you've had with them SYNACK?

 

@mounters - have you utilised the 10Gb ports and/or the stacking ability? Do you have other manufacturers switches and/or utilise VLANs?

[mounters]

Yes the switches are stacked using the stacking kits, we do use VLANS and have a 3com switch connected up with a LAG (2*1Gb connections) as well as many other different models of Netgear switches with no problems.

 

I don't use the 10Gb ports yet, but hopefully will be for a storage project if I can get funding.

Edited April 8, 2011 by mounters
addiitonal info

[SYNACK]

My issue is a procurement one, Netgear have a habit of discontinuing lines with no notice and as we are in NZ they don't replace them instantly so we are now in a position where we can't buy more Netgear switches of the type and size that we want as they have none in NZ and won't get them. We have several Netgear switches already but literally can't get more in the apprpriate product line to add to our network. Their responce is pretty much 'you're in NZ, we don't care'.

 

Personally I would never choose Netgear stuff again and will tell others to hopefully prevent them from being sent up the river by Netgear. Sure they may be better in the UK and may actually care but if they can be so abrupt and unhelpful to us what might they do to you?

[john]

I am looking at making a core of the Netgear switches this year, to support a 10G link to our 2nd campus in 2012. Pricing is looking good on the kit, however having just got the new disty catalogue today, I see that Netgear have a new range of switches for high end coming out very soon, and they are chassis switches so I may now hang on until I can find more info and pricing out on them as they could be a better core.

 

We use a lot of Netgear and they have been good, and when I needed to use Netgear support no issues with them, very efficient and helpful I know that @Dos_Box likes the Netgear range as well from discussions in the past so why spend more when Netgear have the stuff.

 

This is a link to the new Netgear Chassis Switch - http://www.netgear.com/images/XCM88000_09Mar11HR18-31485.pdf

[m25man]

We have used the latest Netgear stuff in a Stacking configuration in several places recently because it was proving impossible to get an alternative solution with the desired configuration of copper, fibre and 10GBE in an at a realistic price.

 

You only need one Layer3 device in a stack to make the whole thing fully routable, the high density dual personality switch let us bring together all of the sites 16 fibre links together in the same stack as all of the servers.

We have another connecting the 3node Hyper-v Cluster to it's ReadyNaS CSV at 10GBE

 

We have built 4 sites using the same configurations for almost a year now and never had them miss a heartbeat.

 

I'm totally vendor agnostic, HP's warranty service is fantastic there is no doubt on the few occasions I have needed to use it the "No Fuss, No Hassle" next day replacement flown in from Holland has been a lifesaver.

 

As a partner, Netgear are fantastic we get better contact and support than any other Vendor, however as an end user from experience I have to agree with Synack they need to improve a lot to be accepted as a major player.

 

Netgears Lifetime warranty has limitations, you often have to jump through hoops emailing copies of invoices to prove purchase dates and ownership and on average it has taken me upwards of 3 days to get a warranty replacement for a failed unit.

 

However, they have improved in other areas. Most of my Netgear Switch failures in the last 10 years have been a result of firmware upgrades gone wrong, leaving me with £1000 door stops.

Now with Dual Images in flash, safe mode recovery and the ability to boot from USB on some units has eliminated this, so we are back to power supplies and fans being the most common point of failure and these are still quite rare and apply to most switch vendors.

 

Of course wherever you are in the world, you only get what you pay for, if your stack is going to cost you 1/3rd of the equivalent HP or Cisco it's pretty obvious that the supporting framework is likely to be less well structured?

 

Netgear probably provide the best overall cost per port in this market sector and support network aside are good value and at those savings having a spare unit is probably viable but the HP probably has the higher backbone capability so I would have to take a close look at the traffic requirements across this array and put my money with whichever vendor meets the requirements.

[camel]

The repsonses have been great so far. I've been researching further but I would like to get my hands on some kit to test. Does anyone know of hosted events or suppliers that will allow me to try out or trial Netgear switches either at their shop or on site?

[featured_spectre]

some companies may offer a trial, but with strict limitations. One company I used to deal with at an old school (subsequently lose the details) offered a trial of 1 month, but you could not add VLANs or make any modifications beyond the settings already there.

[Oops_my_bad]

we are a large campus with 2 large buildings, each with a GSM7328FS at their core. These are connected via 10gig modules & OM3 to a GSM7352S switch which has our servers connected to it, effectively giving us a 10gig backplane, then 1gig to each satellite switch in each building. It's never missed a beat. You may also be interested to know you can use any compatible tranceiver in your netgear switches, unlike HP who lock them down to their own. £45 cheap tranceivers? No problem!

[john]

we are a large campus with 2 large buildings, each with a GSM7328FS at their core. These are connected via 10gig modules & OM3 to a GSM7352S switch which has our servers connected to it, effectively giving us a 10gig backplane, then 1gig to each satellite switch in each building. It's never missed a beat. You may also be interested to know you can use any compatible tranceiver in your netgear switches, unlike HP who lock them down to their own. £45 cheap tranceivers? No problem!

 

Nice to hear good success with that combination, we are looking at using those exact two switches for linking our buildings up and doing that so nice to hear you are having good success with them

[Oops_my_bad]

Nice to hear good success with that combination, we are looking at using those exact two switches for linking our buildings up and doing that so nice to hear you are having good success with them

If my cabling all came back to the one location then I'd go for one of those new chassis you mentioned, would be ideal. Either way I don't think you'll be disappointed

 

A further word to the OP, 3com have been bought out by HP completely, so whilst you can probably still get hold of later 3com kit it will more than likely be going EoL soon whilst HP finish asymilating 3com. At least with 3com they were still making access points for their managed controllers several years after they were released, so it's not suprising all our kit is now EoL following HP's buyout, with no easy migration option. HP's product lifecycle is rediculously short as well.

 

So it looks like your choices are either HP or Netgear

[CyberNerd]

 

A further word to the OP, 3com have been bought out by HP completely, so whilst you can probably still get hold of later 3com kit it will more than likely be going EoL soon whilst HP finish asymilating 3com. At least with 3com they were still making access points for their managed controllers several years after they were released, so it's not suprising all our kit is now EoL following HP's buyout, with no easy migration option. HP's product lifecycle is rediculously short as well.

 

 

 

It's the other way around. HP bought 3com because their kit is good and their O/S is better, much of the 3com kit remains at the expense of procurves..

 

discontinued Networking - HP Small & Medium Business products

 

Discontinued product

» HP E2600 Switch Series

» HP E3400 cl Switch Series

» HP ProCurve 1800 Switch series

» HP ProCurve 2300 Switch series

» HP ProCurve 2512/2524 Switch series

» HP ProCurve 2700 Switch series

» HP ProCurve 2900 Switch series

» HP ProCurve 408 Switch

» HP ProCurve 5300xl Switch series

» HP ProCurve 6108 Switch

» HP ProCurve 9300m Routing Switch series

» HP ProCurve Edge 8100fl Fabric Switch series

[camel]

we are a large campus with 2 large buildings, each with a GSM7328FS at their core. These are connected via 10gig modules & OM3 to a GSM7352S switch which has our servers connected to it, effectively giving us a 10gig backplane, then 1gig to each satellite switch in each building. It's never missed a beat. You may also be interested to know you can use any compatible tranceiver in your netgear switches, unlike HP who lock them down to their own. £45 cheap tranceivers? No problem!

 

Yes, great to hear about your experiences too. @Oops_my_bad, what size school/establishment do work for? And, do you utilise any other switching hardware, alongside the Netgear core? Thanks, Rob

[john]

If my cabling all came back to the one location then I'd go for one of those new chassis you mentioned, would be ideal. Either way I don't think you'll be disappointed

 

We will have 2 Campuses from Sept 2012 so were aiming for that copper switch on both sites linked with a 10g fibre to each other to be the cores for both sites, and on the main site which has all the Servers, SANs etc on it we will have the copper switch (may actually, from my initial calculations need two of them) and the fibre switch as we will have a large number of the cabinets on fibre by that point, and the closer ones on bonded copper so we will finally have all the cabinets being fed from the core rather than fed from each other which is something we have at present.

[Oops_my_bad]

Yes, great to hear about your experiences too. @Oops_my_bad, what size school/establishment do work for? And, do you utilise any other switching hardware, alongside the Netgear core? Thanks, Rob

 

L3 at the core, L2 at the edges. We have a mix of GS748TP's and GSM7224/7248's at the edge, these are all getting replaced with GS748TP's. Not that there are any issues with the GSM7224/48's, it's just we have a lot of PoE devices such as phones, CCTV and Wireless AP's that we've outgrown them. And we have tonnes of PoE bricks in those cabs :| About 1500 lusers here...

[Oops_my_bad]

We will have 2 Campuses from Sept 2012 so were aiming for that copper switch on both sites linked with a 10g fibre to each other to be the cores for both sites, and on the main site which has all the Servers, SANs etc on it we will have the copper switch (may actually, from my initial calculations need two of them) and the fibre switch as we will have a large number of the cabinets on fibre by that point, and the closer ones on bonded copper so we will finally have all the cabinets being fed from the core rather than fed from each other which is something we have at present.

 

Sounds good Is your fibre on site or by Campus I'm guessing you've got to run it via BT or something? Check your distances - if it's 500m or less (might even be 300m) on OM3 you should be able to get away with short range tranceivers

[john]

Sounds good Is your fibre on site or by Campus I'm guessing you've got to run it via BT or something? Check your distances - if it's 500m or less (might even be 300m) on OM3 you should be able to get away with short range tranceivers

 

We own all the land both sides of the road and a conveniently located underpass so were getting the diggers in and going to fit it all It will be OM3 and support 10Gb no issues BT wanted heading for 30K a year for that speed, the campuses are literally across the road from each other its crazy!

[snoerre]

so it's not suprising all our kit is now EoL following HP's buyout, with no easy migration option. HP's product lifecycle is rediculously short as well.

 

Hi, may I ask what product is now EoL?

 

Talking about Netgear. Pricing is really nice. I do like their new 30 year warranty and I used it many time. I had some GS724T V1 with defective fans. The whole switch was replaced by a new one. This was GS724T version 3. The software was completely new, meaning the switch hardware was completely different. And here is the disadvantage of Netgear products. Netgear buys its switches from different hardware makers. You don´t know what you really get as Netgear seems not to build those devices on its own.

Edited June 5, 2011 by snoerre