Moving to Gigabit Ethernet

Soon we are making transition to Gigabit Ethernet . what are the things we have to keep in mind while moving to Gigabit Ethernet ?

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Comments

Priston

Can you elaborate more? Gigabit Ethernet is very general

ciscon00b

I mean we are upgrading our network switches from Fast Ethernet switches to gigabit switch.

AlexNguyen

Jumbo frames.

it_consultant

Its nice to live in 2012 huh? Seriously, our access switches are 10/100 and it is painful.

ciscon00b

10/100 must die. btw which Gigabit switch you guys use at the Core Cisco/HP/DELL ? I'm planning to get Cisco.

ptilsen

Almost all of my clients are on full gigabit. All the routers, firewalls, switches, servers, and most workstations use gigabit.

There are really no special considerations. EMI problems are more likely to result in degradation or connectivity problems, especially over un-shielded CAT5, but I don't really view that as a problem -- it can help identify a cabling problem, if anything.

Auto-negotiation is also more likely to be a problem, but again, that's usually the result of cabling/EMI issues or bad/old equipment, so not really a problem.

Jumbo frames, as mentioned, are a consideration, but even there, only in the sense you should make sure they're disabled. I don't see jumbo frames as advised on anything but a manually configured iSCSI SAN or a very small, manually configured LAN. There are too many interoperability problems for it to be a serious consideration.

My advice on gigabit has been "just do it" for some time now. Full gigabit managed switches with all the protocols and features you want and need are available for reasonable prices. The only ones that are still expensive are full gigabit PoE switches, and in most cases you'll want different access switches for your PoE devices as a result.

We use HP. We'll go with v1810s for access and for smaller/cheaper clients. The 2510, 2810s, and 2910s fill the other needs. They're all great switches, very reliable and a bit faster to configure than Cisco. Different feature sets and performance ratings between models, so review those and decide what you want based on your needs.

Forsaken_GA

dont hardcode speed/duplex if you're in the habit of doing so.

Otherwise, enjoy.

it_consultant

ciscon00b wrote: »

10/100 must die. btw which Gigabit switch you guys use at the Core Cisco/HP/DELL ? I'm planning to get Cisco.

We have it in the budget for all new switches. We will either stick with HP or converge the FC and ethernet with Brocade. No need to pay the Cisco markup, we already have everything configured in our network on regular IEEE standards.