Better Switches Than Cisco?

[Robert L Cochran]

Are there network switches that are better quality than the Cisco brand?
I need at least vlan, link aggregation control protocol, and maybe port
trunking.

Thanks

Bob Cochran

[Neil Cherry]

Better quality in what way? Generally I like the interface but I'm
also not paying for them ;-)

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[Guan Yang]

HP switches are good. Dells work ok but are a nightmare to configure.

On Monday, February 27, 2012 at 17:42 , Neil Cherry wrote:

> On 02/27/2012 04:44 PM, Robert L Cochran wrote:
> > Are there network switches that are better quality than the Cisco brand? I need at least
> > vlan, link aggregation control protocol, and maybe port trunking.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Bob Cochran
>
> Better quality in what way? Generally I like the interface but I'm
> also not paying for them ;-)
>
> --

> Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry nch...@linuxha.com (mailto:nch...@linuxha.com)

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[Matt Joyce]

Arista and juniper spring to mind.

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[Jackson Bloomston]

Guan Yuan: 

I wouldn't say HP or Dell are "better quality" than Cisco (what OP asked).  

Robert L Cochran:

Depending on what you're trying to accomplish, the desired port density and expansion.  The features you listed can be provided by a number of other manufacturers.  Whether they're "better" than Cisco is a loaded question.  

You would do well to explore HP, Entarasys, Juniper, Brocade, Avaya, Extreme Networks, Arista Networks, to name a few.

Cheers!

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[Matt Joyce]

Dell are rebranded broadcom switches ( at least until the Force10 acquisition results in better gear )

Do NOT buy dell.  They are terrible managed switches.
Netgear are terrible as well.

HP is acceptable but Juniper are just plain better.

[Jackson Bloomston]

I couldn't agree more.  Total junk.  I only mentioned them because I was replying to the response right before, who suggested Dell and HP.

My recommendations are in the second paragraph, addressed to the OP.

Cheers,

Jackson

[Terry Stratoudakis]

On the low latency side of things, an FPGA with network interfacing could be configured to perform only the tasks needed.

 

 

Terry Stratoudakis, PE

ALE System Integration

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[Mike Shapiro]

Working for a Data Center i get exposed to a great deal of network hardware and by Cisco is the industry standard i would say that Juniper is a close second but most of the time focus on Backbone equipment where Cisco runs the whole gambit.

I have a Juniper 10gE switch and its interface away from the CLI that is necessary is very nice and easy to work with
Mike Shapiro
LinearNe...@gmail.com

[Matt Joyce]

Are you aware of the netfpga project?

http://netfpga.org/

[Matt Joyce]

On the 10G side I've been very impressed with Arista.

[c f]

Any FPGA-based design is probably the most-complicated/least-reliable solution you could possibly come up with when it comes to networking gear.

[Terry Stratoudakis]

Complicated, yes (but relative term).  Why least reliable?

[Jackson Bloomston]

Maybe it's more fair to say, "OP was looking for a pre-manufactured managed switch"  ;)

FPGA stuff is cool… though I'd imagine it's not something you come across in to day IT.  However it is/was all the rage among traders / financial institutions looking to accelerate their trading systems.  Neat stuff.

[c f]

Because the silicon in a Cisco switch has been verified by a team of DV engineers and seen 10's of thousands of hours (at a minimum) of real-world usage (and the accompanying bug discovery). Almost any DIY FPGA-based design will not get the same treatment, and will not be as reliable.

[Robert L Cochran]

I want to thank everyone for their suggestions. I will investigate all
the suggestions and even look at bit at FPGA. Last week I bought not
one, but two Cisco switches. One of these works fine out of the box. The
second one is defective and I am very unhappy with Cisco's level of
support for my problem. I will probably ask newegg.com (which sold me
both switches) to RMA it and buy one of the brands suggested on this
forum as the replacement.

Bob Cochran

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[Terry Stratoudakis]

If it will be used for a wide range of applications (as Cisco HW is) it needs 10’s of thousands of hours of testing for all those variations.  If your use case is more specific it will not need that kind of testing.  It’s like comparing a large automotive manufacturer to a custom made car.

 

The FPGAs themselves are tested by their manufacturers under many configurations as well.

[Andy Leviss]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 8:57 PM, Robert L Cochran
<coch...@speakeasy.net> wrote:
> I want to thank everyone for their suggestions. I will investigate all the
> suggestions and even look at bit at FPGA. Last week I bought not one, but
> two Cisco switches. One of these works fine out of the box. The second one
> is defective and I am very unhappy with Cisco's level of support for my
> problem. I will probably ask newegg.com (which sold me both switches) to RMA
> it and buy one of the brands suggested on this forum as the replacement.

Let's clarify here. Are you talking real Cisco Small Office line,
which used to be Linksys, or "real" enterprise level Cisco?

-Andy

[Robert L Cochran]

Specifically the Cisco SG200-08 and SG300-10 "Small Business" switches.
The SG300-10 works fine out of the box. The SG200-08 does not.

Thanks!

Bob

[Andy Leviss]

On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 4:36 PM, Robert L Cochran
<coch...@speakeasy.net> wrote:
> Specifically the Cisco SG200-08 and SG300-10 "Small Business" switches. The
> SG300-10 works fine out of the box. The SG200-08 does not.

That's not real Cisco, a couple years ago, it would have a Linksys
label on it. While I haven't had bad experiences with them, I wouldn't
let yours sour you to the "real" enterprise grade stuff. Totally
separate product lines.

--Andy

[Robert L Cochran]

I have a lot to learn about switches. Color me a beginner.

Is there such a thing as a switch with open sourced firmware? I suppose
I can't replace the firmware on my Cisco with open source firmware from
a non-Cisco firmware project?

Thanks

Bob Cochran

On 2/27/12 5:57 PM, Jackson Bloomston wrote:

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[Mike Shapiro]

To my knowledge no one has ever ported an open source framework on a Cisco Router or switch but if you can get it to work you might just have a project for the ages! There are plenty of 3rd party tools and software that compliments Cisco equipment but never heard of anyone rolling their own. If someone undertakes this project i would love to get my hands on a copy of the image due to the fact that i get a ton of EOL Cisco equipment

Mike Shapiro
LinearNe...@gmail.com

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[Matt Joyce]

openwrt to an extent may be considered an open source switch platform... look at like a fonera wireless router with switch within. 

then there is openvswitch which is a virtual switch solution.

-matt

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[Dan Stralka]

Bob,

I think you may need to figure out what you want to do with them before looking for unofficial firmware.  You won't find anything for Cisco's enterprise stuff, but may find a lot under the linksys/cisco small business brand.  DD-WRT is a popular open source firmware for the Linksys wireless routers, but it was designed to provide enterprise like features to a device intended for home use.  If you look at Cisco's enterprise offering, you'll see a tons of features and flexibility already built in.

If you're looking for something to play with, best stick to the Cisco small business/ Linksys stuff, as there is a higher probablility of a hacking community.

If you want true enterprise capabilities in a small, affordable package, I'd actually recommend a Juniper EX2200.  I'm a big Cisco guy, but the EX is small, cheap, well built, and runs an enterprise level OS (JunOS).  It's pretty great and loaded with features.

-- Dan

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[Robert L Cochran]

Dan,

Thanks for your thoughts here. Given the cost of the Juniper EX2200-C at
approximately USD $960, does it make sense to have enterprise switches
in a SOHO setting -- one where there will be a great deal of activity
with an network attached storage device? One person wants to store
terabytes of photos on an NAS. My thinking has been that an enterprise
class switch might be needed to handle that amount of data and do it
quickly. Perhaps I'm wrong and don't need to invest in higher end
switches? I mean, what do I know about switches...but I'm happy to learn
more.

Bob

On 2/29/12 1:10 AM, Dan Stralka wrote:
>
> Bob,
>
> I think you may need to figure out what you want to do with them
> before looking for unofficial firmware. You won't find anything for
> Cisco's enterprise stuff, but may find a lot under the linksys/cisco
> small business brand. DD-WRT is a popular open source firmware for
> the Linksys wireless routers, but it was designed to provide
> enterprise like features to a device intended for home use. If you
> look at Cisco's enterprise offering, you'll see a tons of features and
> flexibility already built in.
>
> If you're looking for something to play with, best stick to the Cisco
> small business/ Linksys stuff, as there is a higher probablility of a
> hacking community.
>
> If you want true enterprise capabilities in a small, affordable
> package, I'd actually recommend a Juniper EX2200. I'm a big Cisco
> guy, but the EX is small, cheap, well built, and runs an enterprise
> level OS (JunOS). It's pretty great and loaded with features.
>
> -- Dan
>
> On Feb 28, 2012 11:06 PM, "Robert L Cochran" <coch...@speakeasy.net

> <mailto:nch...@linuxha.com>
> (mailto:nch...@linuxha.com <mailto:nch...@linuxha.com>)

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[Dan Stralka]

Bob,

I would always recommend an enterprise grade switch in any business environment, even at the smallest of sites.  The flexibility, support, and performance they offer far outweighs the initial cost difference of the device.  Besides, the EX2200 model is designed for SOHO environments, so you wouldn't be deploying something out of it's target market.

I'm not familiar with any of the new Cisco Small Business units, but older models only offered a max throughput of about 3Gbps, whereas the smallest EX2200 can handle 28Gbps.  Also, I'm pretty sure all of the Linksys models switch and route in software, which not only adds latency and cuts down on actual throughput, but also significantly impacts the lifetime and overall availability of the unit.

We have an EX2200-C-12T-2G deployed at one site that handles 24 hour IPTV multicast streams that run between 200-800Mbps (over multiple interfaces) depending on broadcast needs.  It did replace a Cisco Small Business switch that needed constant reboots and choked after it reached about 1Gbps throughput combined on all ports.

Generally speaking, with a home/small business switch, you have Gig capability to all of the ports but most of the time will only be able to see that performance on one or two ports at a time, whereas with the enterprise grade switches you will not have an over-subscription problem (that is, the switching/routing capability can match or exceed the port density).  For example, the EX2200-C-12T-2G lists that it can handle 28Gbps throughput, or 2Gig per interface.

Besides the performance and stability, you get unmatched flexibility for configuring more advanced features like QoS, multicast, dynamic routing, VLANs, etc.  The ability to remotely monitor with SNMP and verbose show commands give you an insight into performance that you'd never receive with a Linksys/Dlink/Netgear type of device.

I could go on forever on this topic, but I think I covered the basics.  Feel free to shop around, and look into some other models (we looked at the Cisco 3560-C compact model as well).  I would recommend staying away from any of the higher end DLink, Linksys, and Netgear models (I have experience with many of them - and they are a waste of money).

Feel free to shoot back any questions.  I've been on Resistors a while now and am happy to finally see a topic I have a clue about. :)

Dan

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[Andy Leviss]

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 3:02 PM, Dan Stralka <mrsye...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I could go on forever on this topic, but I think I covered the basics.  Feel
> free to shop around, and look into some other models (we looked at the Cisco
> 3560-C compact model as well).  I would recommend staying away from any of
> the higher end DLink, Linksys, and Netgear models (I have experience with
> many of them - and they are a waste of money).

That was my point the other day; Cisco Small Business *IS* Linksys.
Linksys no longer exists, any Linksys models that are still in
production maintain the same model number, but are now Cisco branded.
So caveat emptor, etc, etc.

--Andy