New Core Switches / rollout of new switches

[sonofsanta]

I remember extreme they used to make those purple switches

 

And still do

[cpjitservices]

I had a demo with them a while ago they showed me one of there videos and had a chassis with 192 ports at 40 Gig each and they had 3 microseconds of latency and each port was getting absolutely hammered with as much traffic as you could throw at it, thats a monster.

[Little-Miss]

........awesome!!

[FragglePete]

SFPs are a painful thing to have to purchase. Everything always seems such good value until you add them in

 

I recently took a gamble with some compatibles on a VOIP project. Added 10 new switches on the network and on three of the links I tried some compatibles (6 GBICs in total). These cost £30 each as opposed to HP being nearer £200. So far, no problems, all working well. Got them from GBICS.COM - they're based in Cirencester so quite close to us and I also got them to confirm compatability with our kit.

 

Pete

[CyberNerd]

FFS if I had only known they were purple.

 

We have purple cabling. it would be a perfect match.

 

I probably still have time to cancel the A5800 order. Will call them tomorrow.

[glennda]

I ordered an HP 5406Zl 44 copper and 52 fibre ports, 36 Gbics and an additional power supply for circa 12k. I also use HP 2610's for edge switching although this is only 10/100. I would look towards to the 2810 range which is 110/100/1000 if i had the money.

 

All our switching is HP procuve and its brilliant. We seperate blocks into Vlans and its very stable.

[john]

I would recommend for the sheer reliability and life span the Juniper EX2200 switches, I have never come across such a solid switch and they are VERY easy to configure and pretty cheap too actually, £800 will get you a layer 3 48-port 2200 which is what we have here and they are great!

 

And yes they DO support 802.1ad and 802.1x which I am going to be playing with very soon.

 

Personally I'd use them on the core.

 

As a quick demo:

 

Another vote for Juniper switches, we replaced our entire network (which was previously Netgear) back in October with Juniper from edge to core, and we have got all the edges on EX2200s of various versions be they PoE or 24 or 48 ports and then have EX4200s in the core, including the 24 port fibre switch the do. The have a lot of features, including 10GBe options on the core (which we have taken for a link to our new lower school campus) so they are well worth your time.

 

I have been continually impressed at just how simple this Juniper hardware is, it just works I don't think I've done anything much bar a few VLAN tags since it went in. I have however monitored traffic and been impressed at just how much data we are chucking around and how nothing slows doing it!

 

We worked with @Net-Ctrl on the project, and they won the procurement process with the Juniper solution, and they were faced with competition from the following brands - Netgear, HP, Cisco and Extreme, these solutions were offered from various vendors, and based on the feature set required, support, installation and configuration the Juniper deal from Net Ctrl was the best on the table in both long and short term requirements.

 

So albeit a lesser heard name, Juniper have been a bit like Extreme in the past hiding in the core of places rather than in the monthly junk mail catalogues, they are certainly worth looking into and using. Without Juniper you wouldn't have Internet its big in the Internet routing, we are certainly converted to them and have been over the moon with the product and what it has done for our network, I was sceptical that a new switching setup could do so much for improving our systems but it did and I was impressed as were the staff upon the return after a week away.

 

I know @Soulfish also echos my feeling on Juniper having had them recommended by him to consider as I know he would give his arms and legs to rip out his Cisco and swap it for Juniper in his new school

[sonofsanta]

Another vote for Juniper switches...

 

Was speaking to Aggy & Rob @ Net-Ctrl yesterday, and although the Juniper kit does sound good (and I've heard good of them before, and their continued attempts to dethrone Cisco) Rob seemed to think it might still be pricey for the Education sector - right product, wrong price point. I think he was going to look at another brand that might fulfil our needs, so looking forward to seeing what I get back next week

 

I ordered an HP 5406Zl 44 copper and 52 fibre ports, 36 Gbics and an additional power supply for circa 12k. I also use HP 2610's for edge switching although this is only 10/100. I would look towards to the 2810 range which is 110/100/1000 if i had the money.

 

Is that a single 5406Zl, and if so do they have built in redundancy anyway a la SANs? As £12k is a lot of money... although I'd only need half that many fibre ports to meet my current and future needs, so wouldn't be as bad I hope.

 

Planning on getting Gbe everywhere I can - opportunities such as this are not like to rise often, so I'd rather do it right.

[CyberNerd]

I'd still be inclined to stick with HP if most of your kit is already 3com as the transition is likely to be easier because the operating systems are the same, or at least similar. You'll also get better support from HP or engineers using existing 3com kit, module interoperability etc.

If you are completely ripping out the network then consider juniper, extreme, cisco etc.

 

Planning on getting Gbe everywhere I can - opportunities such as this are not like to rise often, so I'd rather do it right.

 

We considered 5406Zl, E4800G's and 7500 series. The A5800 seemed to be a good fit for our network on advice from switchshop. Your mileage may vary. THere is redundancy in all of them provided you buy enough modules (in the 5406/7500 chassis) or duplicate the non-chassis switches and used aggregated llinks to different the different units.

[glennda]

Is that a single 5406Zl, and if so do they have built in redundancy anyway a la SANs? As £12k is a lot of money... although I'd only need half that many fibre ports to meet my current and future needs, so wouldn't be as bad I hope.

 

Most of that cost was Gbics - 36 @ £130 ish (4.6k) i think we paid which is over 5k. It has built in dual power supplies and as its modular you only tend to get a module fail (which we did) HP Replaced Next day but we managed to cross over using copper in some places. Its then a case of swapping module in/out which is all hot-swap.

 

The Base model we used is p/n J9447A then plugged additional modules in.

[snoerre]

We considered 5406Zl, E4800G's and

 

My network consists of a lot of E4800 devices. We will soon get another building. I´d like to add the HP 5500 HI series (basically an upgraded 5500 EI series plus integrated SFP+ plus option for redundant power supply)

[Patman]

We went with Cisco when we replaced our network. We have two 4900s at the core (redundancy) and have two 48 port 2960s at each mdf. One 2960 is dedicated POE. We have 10G modules for switch to switch fibre connections. We have Cat6 from 2960 to end devices. We have a Ruckus wireless setup with POE from 2960s to WAPs.

 

We considered only HP and Cisco.

 

The reason we went with Cisco over HP was that the total power the POE switches could give was greater for the Cisco switches. Careful about POE regarding what a switch can give per channel and what the total switch can give. A switch might not be able to support max power on all ports at the same time.

 

Cisco came in with an aggressive price to compete with HP. HP's ease of use and price makes it competitive. We did a little research on HP configuration versus Cisco configuration and ongoing HP management versus Cisco management. We also looked at the power output for POE for current needs and expected growth.

 

Truth is, since it was configured, we have made very few changes to our Cisco configuration.

[cpjitservices]

The Juniper switches we have are POE on every port and they can handle full power on every port at the same time if configured to do so, we have a 24 port 2200 and every port is in use serving POE to all the phones in the building at the same time and also to an access point or two. Juniper design there kit for Internet Backbones the kit is very good and it's evident in the build and quality of the products!, you can break a Juniper device and it will still forward/route traffic because of the way it is designed even if you break the config it rolls itself back if you so wish after a certain length of time, the default being 10 minutes.

 

I still have a few Cisco switches here n there - 2950's! Great switches but they are on the access layer and not at the core, they'll be swapped out soon as we get Juniper EX4200's in at the core the 2200's will serve as access switches.

 

Although I do like HP kit I've never been anywhere that uses HP switches. I will be buying a HP Pro-curve to go in my home lab at some point I've heard nothing but good reviews about Pro-curves.

[nicholab]

Design question here but do people put a switch at the top of their servers racks and then link into the core or do you link straight to the core?

[CyberNerd]

Design question here but do people put a switch at the top of their servers racks and then link into the core or do you link straight to the core?

 

Blade centre has a built in switch that has 4b/s to the core (Im' upgrading this to a 10Gb's switch over summer) Everything else goes straight to the core.

[Michael]

I think if I was to replace switches today, gigabit to the desktop and 10Gb backbone is the way to go. This can be over CX4 or OM3 fibre depending on your network infrastructure.

 

The ultimate method of determining a good spec (besides the make and port speed) is the switching capacity. This varies considerably, for example:

 

48 Port HP 5800 - 256Gbps

48 Port HP 2910 - 176Gbps

48 Port HP 1810 - 104Gbps

 

Yet they're all classed as gigabit switches, so it's certainly a spec to look out for - higher is of course better

[localzuk]

Higher shouldn't be equated as better, without context within which to make that determination.

 

For example, I wouldn't say that a 747 is a better plane than a Tornado, because it holds more people - as the metric for determining value might be that the plane be a fighter jet...

 

It all depends on needs - i'd not expect a school to see the levels of traffic that would require the 5800 series switches, the 2910 would be perfectly functional. The 1910 isn't much use IMO due to its lack of 10Gbit ports - using it would cost you more to trunk the 4 SFP ports together to get 4Gbit than buying a 2910 - but then again, it depends on your traffic needs.

[Michael]

In this context it is correct however. The higher the switching capacity, the more the switch can move around.

 

The point I was trying to make is the HP 1810 has a similar switching capacity to that of a 10/100 switch, so the fact workstations would connect at 1000Mbps, you'd get comparatively poor performance in terms of transfer speeds, if you were expecting much higher speeds than 10/100.

[localzuk]

In this context it is correct however. The higher the switching capacity, the more the switch can move around.

 

The point I was trying to make is the HP 1810 has a similar switching capacity to that of a 10/100 switch, so the fact workstations would connect at 1000Mbps, you'd get comparatively poor performance in terms of transfer speeds, if you were expecting much higher speeds than 10/100.

 

I think you missed my point a little. If there's no need for those transfer amounts, then the more expensive models are not better - they're more than is needed so not better.

 

Every situation should be looked at and decisions be made according to the needs of the individual network.

[snoerre]

Well, hardware is not everything. Look at the software features, instead.

 

e.g. HP 2910al. Great switch, more power than a 3500yl, 10Gbe options, but software? It is still on "procurve version 14.x" No signs of K.15

 

HP 1810: Look at the firmware size and compare to the V1910 series... LACP with 4x 1Gbit/s is working very well on the V1910 (== ex 3Com 2928/2952 series).

 

Talking about the A5800 (== H3C S5800). You take that one, if you like to build e.g. a MPLS/VPLS network, running BGP IPv4/IPv6, OSFPv2/v3, ISIS IPv4/IPv6 with PIM-SM/SSM IPv4/IPv6 multicast routing...

[Michael]

I think you missed my point a little. If there's no need for those transfer amounts, then the more expensive models are not better - they're more than is needed so not better.

 

Every situation should be looked at and decisions be made according to the needs of the individual network.

 

Well yes, I wouldn't recommend any school to buy over-spec equipment. I think the price tag would put some schools off anyway

 

 

@snoerre - Software is important I agree, but HP software has always been pretty good really.

[m25man]

A couple of quick additions here,

 

Always look at a stackable solution for your core switch as an alternative for costly chassis solutions, they tend to be more flexible in providing the port density and features for a much lower cost than chassis switches.

 

It is possible to implement 10Gbe over OM1 or OM2 Fibre at reduced distances.

 

10Gbe at 850nm (Short Reach Modules) is rated at 33m on OM1 62.5u

10Gbe at 850nm (Short Reach Modules) is rated at 82m on OM2 50u

And of course 300m on OM3 50u

 

It's not always cut an dried as the condition of your existing OM1 or OM2 fibre especially bend radius and launch cables (patch leads) can have a profound effect but I have 10Gbe running over an assortment of legacy fibre without a problem.

 

So 10Gbe capable switches for future use can be a consideration regardless of your current requirements or existing inter cabinet links.

Just have them properly certified first!

[snoerre]

@snoerre - Software is important I agree, but HP software has always been pretty good really.

 

Well, I actually talked about features. Therefore a HP 2910AL looses against a A5120-EI, a 1810 looses against a V1910, a 3500/5200/6600 looses against a E4800, a 8212zl looses against e.g. a A10500, except you want openflow, for now

There´s a reason why HP purchased H3C/3Com...

Edited February 26, 2012 by snoerre

[cpjitservices]

Switches top of rack at the core, servers go direct into core switches, trunk links from the core switches to access switches.

[sonofsanta]

Right, I have two competing options now...

 

First (and cheapest): a pair of HP 5820s stacked for the core with SFP modules hanging off. All fibre therefore connects to core. 5820s stacked via a pair of 10Gbe DA cables. Pro: can re-use existing 3COM SFPs.

 

Second (and apparently better specced): an 8206zl at the core with SFP modules attached, so all fibre connects to core.

 

 

The latter is, at current, some 50% more... but it does appear to be a better specced piece of kit. And as has been pointed out to me, stacking the 5820's via a pair of DA cables effectively limits the core to 20Gbps switching backplane. Bearing in mind we're not likely to grow above 500 domain devices (including printers), but that BYOD and guest wireless will happen in a couple of years... what do people think? Will the 5820s genuinely be alright or am I better served spending the money now (if I can) on the higher spec ProCurve stuff?

 

(this decision may yet be made by monetary concerns, but I'm off to ask about that now)