HP Procurve 10GB Network Backbone Switching

[SHimmer45]

Hi all, looking for some feedback and information.

school im working in is looking to upgrade the network backbone from the 1GB/100MB switching to a 10GBe Backbone, having used HP procurve for pretty much the last ten years were are going to be sticking with HP.

Having had a look at HP site there are 2 versions (copper and fibre) anyone have experience of either type.

 

any feedback on those who have made the transition would be greatly received.

any issues with connecting other blocks which are linked with 1GB fibre connections etc

 

thanks

Edited November 8, 2011 by SHimmer45

[glennda]

I've got a 5406zl which is really good - i only use 1gb from the backbone but it does modules for 10gb.

 

There is also the 5408zl and 5412zl which have more slots then then 5406zl.

 

Can't fault it.

 

Also heard good things about Juniper Kit.

[andyrite]

Using 10gb fibre here with HP kit. Get in touch if you want to ask anything.

 

Andy

[Tallwood_6]

School down the road spent tens of thousands on procurve 5412zl for each building with the various modules and transceivers only to find the fibre they had in place wasn't really up to the task so had to switch back to Gig uplinks so I'd check this first. 10 gig base-t looks promising but switches with these type or ports seem to be few and far between.

[andyrite]

You need OM3 fibre for 10 gig. The modules cost a fortune as well. One thing is make sure your servers have 10 gig cards as well otherwise it would be a bit pointless.

[Tallwood_6]

The distance om3 fibre will support 10 gig over is somewhat shorter, and it's far less forgiving of poorly spliced & terminated fibres from what I've heard.

[apeman]

I am using HP Procurve 8212zl, 5412zl and 5406zl with a mix pretty much of all 1gig/10gig the modules available apart from sfp+ modules

they are all performing like a dream, we had one issue when the switches were installed 3 years ago where you couldn't stream video over the 10gig links it just stuttered. this was resolved with a firmware update which was already out, our installers hadn't updated though

one thing i will say is that be careful how many 10gig modules you put in one switch, i used to be the case with the early model switches where if you filled more than half the switch with 10gig modules and when they run at full capacity the switch backplane couldn't cope. so it is worth checking this, chances of filling this capacity have got to be a long way off for most of us anyway and i wouldnt let this put you off buying these switches for the money and free support nothing can beat them

[SHimmer45]

thanks for you responses people much appreciated.

[james_yale]

10GBe on ProCurve here as well, we're using the first generation short range optical stuff and did have to have some new (OM3) fiber pulled but it works well right upto (and slightly over) the 350M recommended maximum distance.

 

There are some newer fiber modules now (J9144A) that will do 10GB over older fiber, I wouldn't use copper interconnects between buildings - it's not very scalable for future use and there are issues with electrical if the buildings are on different supplies (highly likely).

[SHimmer45]

Copper between building wouldnt have used as we already have fibre between all blocks however some is a mix of old and new which would need looking at to see if it is 10GB capable.

judging by some of the prices of kit i have a feeling that a gradual upgrade across the site is more likely.

[IanT]

10Gb backbone is over doing it in my opinion! - a school doesnt need it!

[CyberNerd]

10Gb backbone is over doing it in my opinion! - a school doesnt need it!

 

60 odd wireless 'n' switches that can take 30 machines each - all have 1GB/s uplinks - and you want me to run that on what 2gb/s uplinks?

[IanT]

60 odd wireless 'n' switches that can take 30 machines each - all have 1GB/s uplinks - and you want me to run that on what 2gb/s uplinks?

 

I've worked on many solutions which dont require 10Gb backbone - overkill still in my book, i've seen and worked with many networks which could handle that without 10Gb bb.

[m25man]

There is still plenty of milage in trunked 1Gb links in schools.

By all means buy a switch capable of taking the modules and have any new fibre installed as OM3 but as far as rolling 10Gbe out Campus wide you could be signing your own redundancy notice in this climate!

[IanT]

There is still plenty of milage in trunked 1Gb links in schools.

By all means buy a switch capable of taking the modules and have any new fibre installed as OM3 but as far as rolling 10Gbe out Campus wide you could be signing your own redundancy notice in this climate!

 

Totally agree!

[CyberNerd]

I wasn't advocating site wide usage. We put in 10GB/s links to our English/maths and Science blocks (and a 1GB/s failover between the two) , it's only 4 modules so probably about £4k + OM3 (around £600 IIRC). Both areas (science) and English/Maths each have around 200 machines and access points in every classroom (20). Are you seriously telling me I should run upto 800 x 100Mb/s machines on a 2GB/s link?? - it would be the same as running 100 machines on a 250Mb/s connection. What I'm doing is essentially giving each 100 machines just over 1GB/s, which seems quite reasonable to me??

[SHimmer45]

a campus wide roll out of 10Gbe wouldnt get further than "pie in the sky" let alone approved as in most cases its not required (for example we had a fibre break and we used a temp wireless bridge without complaints)

more a case of the core of the network needs updating and looking at various options open to use.

[john]

At my place we have the capacity for the 10GBe stuff for the future. We have a 10GBe link to our lower site when that comes online, that is it, we are happy with bonded links of fibre and copper to the edges. We feel that yes 10GBe is becoming more affordable but its still at a high price tag and bonding existing copper and fibre is cheap enough to do so its just wasting money in this climate to put al the 10GBe stuff around, it would be nice but having just done a major network upgrade with to our new Juniper LAN with the excellent, in-fact out of this world support from Net-Ctrl we can say that 10GBe is nice but very costly.

[m25man]

We are however using 10Gbe in our iSCSI Sans and Servers.

 

Direct Cable connections are an awesome way to link servers to Sans or switches for under £100 per link.

 

The HP ones are here http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13286_div/13286_div.PDF

 

The Netgear 3m is only £80 but knowing how HP block using non HP modules I wouldnt recommend using a non HP cable in an HP slot unless anyone here knows for certain that they work!

[paulfinlay]

i'd be really surprised if you need 10Gb. have you looked at current link utilisation? Show Interface on a procurve switch will give you % utilisation.

[localzuk]

i'd be really surprised if you need 10Gb. have you looked at current link utilisation? Show Interface on a procurve switch will give you % utilisation.

 

To be 100% honest here, this is irrelevant - network infrastructure being put in now would have a life expectancy of what? 10 years or more? So, in 10 years, will you be saying that network requirements will still be 1 or 2GB/s on backbones?

[paulfinlay]

By all means if you have the money go for it. Although if it were my budget I'd be aggregating 1Gb links.

[mrbios]

10Gb backbone is over doing it in my opinion! - a school doesnt need it!

 

Whoa breaking the mold, someone speaking sense at last!

 

 

Future proofing aside, i agree with IanT, i honestly think any school would have to do some very thorough analysis of it's network and where it's going in the future years to justify 10GB

[ITGURU]

10Gb backbone is over doing it in my opinion! - a school doesnt need it!

 

It's the best thing we ever did. A noticeable difference over 1gb uplinks especially when imaging PCs.

[kevin_lane]

I see a lot of different opinions which is good but personally for me personally I'm moving over to 10GB 1 because our increase in computing devices is increasing 2 when it comes to rolling our new equipment and it needs imaging on top plus on top of that if you need to roll out additional software over the network. 2 scanning of the network is becoming more popular these days and monitoring of switches and servers 3 (for us anyway) staff profiles are becoming bigger and is like same as fire fighting 3 it also future proofs the school

4 when you have 300 kids logging on its quicker

 

Every one has there own opinion and if you have the budget do it you know your own network and can only decided where it's going to go.