HA With switches
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@Francesco-Provino What's in place now? If it works well then run with their updated products.
We've run with NETGEAR and Mellanox for 10GbE and Mellanox for 25GbE+.
The NETGEAR XS716T and up are nice because they don't require any infrastructure upgrades other than CAT6 preferable to endpoints. RJ45 = simple plug & play for most applications with SFP connectors for switch to switch.
Mellanox for all of the SFP style connectors. A pair of MSX1012X 10GbE switches can be had for a very good price. Cost wise, a pair of NETGEAR XS716T switches + Intel X550T-2 NIC pair per server is about the same as a pair of MSX1012X 10GbE Mellanox switches with ConnectX-4 LX 10GbE NIC pairs per server. The benefit with the Mellanox setup is RoCE/RDMA while stepping up into Intel's iWARP capable NICs would push the cost up even further.
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@PhlipElder don't know why but never thought Netgear as "Enterprise" grade gear. Yeah fine for a office or shop but not backbone.
Since they are always mentioned I thought Ubiquiti but not sure they will give the required ports as they only have 2 10g SPF+ ports and I'll need 4 at the core.
Have looked at Dell N4000 series but they seem ££££
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@hobbit666 said in HA With switches:
@PhlipElder don't know why but never thought Netgear as "Enterprise" grade gear. Yeah fine for a office or shop but not backbone.
It's some seriously good stuff. Maybe not Juniper good, but way above what most SMBs consider using.
What are you considering enterprise that you feel is on par with Netgear?
Netgear used to be Nortel and Bay Networks, they were one of the big enterprise players with Cisco and Juniper in the old days. Obviously they've famously blown Cisco away in quality, but I think we mostly agree with you that Cisco isn't enterprise in the majority of cases.
Netgear always complains that because they made consumer gear too, that so many SMBs know them for that new product line and don't realize that they've been enterprise players for decades.
Netgear is, or was last that I knew, the worlds top networking maker by ports shipped.
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@PhlipElder said in HA With switches:
@Francesco-Provino What's in place now? If it works well then run with their updated products.
We've run with NETGEAR and Mellanox for 10GbE and Mellanox for 25GbE+.
Very good choices.
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@scottalanmiller said in HA With switches:
Netgear always complains that because they made consumer gear too, that so many SMBs know them for that new product line and don't realize that they've been enterprise players for decades.
.^^this
I've always used them in a SMB way and never really thought that way. My bad
Enterprise I've always considered Cisco,
HPeTo be honest I did look at some of the Netgear range and found some that I thought would fit the bill for Core.
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@scottalanmiller and others.
Where would you place Ubiquity stuff? In the SMB, Enterprise or somewhere in the middle?
As mentioned I was going to use them coming off the core switches, or should I just stick with what I know. Netgear -
@hobbit666 said in HA With switches:
Enterprise I've always considered Cisco,
The maker of Linksys (traditionally?) Cisco does make some enterprise stuff, but only at $10K and higher. Cisco is, in general, about the farthest from enterprise you can get in the real world (other than actual Linksys, D-Link, etc.) Netgear and Ubiquiti, for example, specifically go after Cisco as being "always below them." Cisco gear under their top end ranges is some of the worst: slow, buggy, not efficient to configure. And Cisco's consumer stuff has been some of the absolute worst of the consumer stuff.
If you think of Cisco as enterprise, wait till you work with the good stuff.
At the very first SpiceCorps NYC, we were hosted by a networking lab and all of their gear was Netgear because it was literally the best that they could buy and Cisco literally couldn't meet their network needs. They had evaluated both, in place, with serious testing and Netgear and Cisco were the two most divergent products that they had used.
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@hobbit666 said in HA With switches:
Where would you place Ubiquity stuff? In the SMB, Enterprise or somewhere in the middle?
Well better than Cisco, certainly!
UBNT's thing is really making enterprise gear with an SMB focus. Their stuff is designed heavily for SMB use, by way of just the physical features and sizes that they offer. But their quality and design is very enterprise.
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@hobbit666 said in HA With switches:
As mentioned I was going to use them coming off the core switches, or should I just stick with what I know. Netgear
As per their names, Ubiquiti really only focuses on Edge devices. Netgear makes amazing core stuff (and edge.) Netgear has a really broad line, too.
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@scottalanmiller said in HA With switches:
The maker of Linksys (traditionally?) Cisco
Dude, Cisco sold off Linksys in 2013. Pay attention.
Cisco bought them in 2003. -
@scottalanmiller said in HA With switches:
@hobbit666 said in HA With switches:
As mentioned I was going to use them coming off the core switches, or should I just stick with what I know. Netgear
As per their names, Ubiquiti really only focuses on Edge devices. Netgear makes amazing core stuff (and edge.) Netgear has a really broad line, too.
I've dealt with too much bad Netgear. I know you always like them, but I've had crap luck with them over the years.
Today, I would still use Ubiquiti for core.
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@JaredBusch said in HA With switches:
@scottalanmiller said in HA With switches:
The maker of Linksys (traditionally?) Cisco
Dude, Cisco sold off Linksys in 2013. Pay attention.
Cisco bought them in 2003.As a brand, but they kept a lot of the products in their routing, switching, and VoIP lines. They sold the name, but they kept the products. So old Linksys is now Cisco proper.
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@hobbit666 said in HA With switches:
@PhlipElder don't know why but never thought Netgear as "Enterprise" grade gear. Yeah fine for a office or shop but not backbone.
Since they are always mentioned I thought Ubiquiti but not sure they will give the required ports as they only have 2 10g SPF+ ports and I'll need 4 at the core.
Have looked at Dell N4000 series but they seem ££££
We've been running NETGEAR 10GbE in disaggregate cluster settings for five or six years now. For the most part, they've been rock solid. The only issue we've experienced with them is the need to flash firmware when switching a shared 10GbE RJ45/SFP+ port from one to the other.
For the price, they are a great place to start.
And again, no way we'd touch Ubiquiti for anything more than a managed switch.
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@scottalanmiller said in HA With switches:
@JaredBusch said in HA With switches:
@scottalanmiller said in HA With switches:
The maker of Linksys (traditionally?) Cisco
Dude, Cisco sold off Linksys in 2013. Pay attention.
Cisco bought them in 2003.As a brand, but they kept a lot of the products in their routing, switching, and VoIP lines. They sold the name, but they kept the products. So old Linksys is now Cisco proper.
The Cisco Small Business Pro series edge (NSA 510/520 series with and without WiFi) and their SG300/SG500 series switches were the result of the Linksys purchase engineering combination.
We've deployed a lot of the SG500x series stackable switches with a few weird behaviours depending on how they are set up. Many of them fronted the disaggregate clusters mentioned above.
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@JaredBusch said in HA With switches:
@scottalanmiller said in HA With switches:
@hobbit666 said in HA With switches:
As mentioned I was going to use them coming off the core switches, or should I just stick with what I know. Netgear
As per their names, Ubiquiti really only focuses on Edge devices. Netgear makes amazing core stuff (and edge.) Netgear has a really broad line, too.
I've dealt with too much bad Netgear. I know you always like them, but I've had crap luck with them over the years.
Today, I would still use Ubiquiti for core.
Heh, and our experience with Ubiquiti is the same: Crap. Especially when we've got a lot of VLAN routing to do at the port level. We've seen them take a knipsch and go into lockdown mode where no packets flow on a specific VLAN.
I do not like Ubiquiti Sam I Am, Sam I Am, I do not like Ubiquiti Sam I Am.
As far as NETGEAR goes, we avoid anything entry/consumer/pro-sumer. We've only deployed their 10GbE switches and have had good success with them.
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@PhlipElder said in HA With switches:
As far as NETGEAR goes, we avoid anything entry/consumer/pro-sumer. We've only deployed their 10GbE switches and have had good success with them.
That gets a lot of people, I think. They use consumer Netgear stuff and get questionable results. But I've seen only good results from their more high end gear.
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@PhlipElder said in HA With switches:
@scottalanmiller said in HA With switches:
@JaredBusch said in HA With switches:
@scottalanmiller said in HA With switches:
The maker of Linksys (traditionally?) Cisco
Dude, Cisco sold off Linksys in 2013. Pay attention.
Cisco bought them in 2003.As a brand, but they kept a lot of the products in their routing, switching, and VoIP lines. They sold the name, but they kept the products. So old Linksys is now Cisco proper.
The Cisco Small Business Pro series edge (NSA 510/520 series with and without WiFi) and their SG300/SG500 series switches were the result of the Linksys purchase engineering combination.
We've deployed a lot of the SG500x series stackable switches with a few weird behaviours depending on how they are set up. Many of them fronted the disaggregate clusters mentioned above.
Yeah, we see those "Cisco rebranded Linksys" units all over the place. They are awful.
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@PhlipElder said in HA With switches:
MSX1012X
We have Cisco Sg500 500 now. We are upgrading every cabinet link to SM fiber, so we'll need more SFP.
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@scottalanmiller When you say "Their High End Gear" what would that be?
Simply click the "Business" link on their website or a specific range?
I've been looking at the M7100 for core and maybe XS724EM/XS728T for edgeHonestly i'd be happy with either Netgear (also been a fan and not see much issues, we have 2 in the core setup now)
or anything else people think are reliable. -
@scottalanmiller said in HA With switches:
@PhlipElder said in HA With switches:
As far as NETGEAR goes, we avoid anything entry/consumer/pro-sumer. We've only deployed their 10GbE switches and have had good success with them.
That gets a lot of people, I think. They use consumer Netgear stuff and get questionable results. But I've seen only good results from their more high end gear.
We live in an era where we get what we pay for. Historically, one could count on purchasing a solid product from pretty much all top tier vendors at all levels.
That is no longer the case.
Example: Dell's included warranty. Ever dealt with the "must troubleshoot/diagnose via phone support" support folks before. Ugh, the pain.
ProSupport with NA techs and at least Next Business Day replacement is worth every penny.Example: There's a very important reason why Ubiquiti's 10GbE switch is sub $1K while a purebred Cisco is orders of magnitude above that in cost. Engineering. NETGEAR catches the middle-lower of the pack in the XS716T series but still has quality engineering involved on both the hardware and software side.
Perhaps I'm preaching to the choir here? I'm sufficiently new enough on this forum to excuse it eh?
I remember standing at the back of the room at Microsoft a number of years ago having the AMG/M versus CTS-V "discussion" with some Blue Badges, my conclusion being CTS-V all the way, though an argument against was exactly this reasoning. A 6-Speed CTS-V Supercharged Wagon is still one of those bucket list items for me. The CTS series is made by Cadillac.
Looking back to the Cisco purchase of Linksys it was a wise move. They picked up a solid crew of folks to produce a pretty good line of products aimed at a huge market: SMB
The major "improvement" was a GUI and the introduction of enterprise grade features in a switch and edge setup destined for that market. The early rebranded Linksys stuff was still theirs and still sucked IMNSHO. But, as mentioned, the Small Business Pro product lines have been excellent though not without a few issues.
For gits and shiggles: https://youtu.be/8SE4YfmlckE <-- Still one of the best produced auto model introduction commercials I've ever seen.
