Cisco switches...

I need a little help here;

my boss outsources her networking as of right now...

He's trying to push this on her:
CDW Product Overview : Cisco SB 24-Port 10/100/1000 Gigabit Switch with WebView
for $423.

Does anyone have any other solutions for a Gb switch? He told her that the first one ($423) will work nicely with the Call Manager. (we may not even go Cisco, or VoIP at all!)

help appreciated

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Comments

meadIT

The second one you list only has gigabit for the 4 uplinks. The first one is gigabit on each port.

tiersten

That is actually a Linksys switch and doesn't run IOS. I assume if it can support QoS and PoE if you need it then it'd work okay for VoIP.

vCole

meadIT wrote: »

The second one you list only has gigabit for the 4 uplinks. The first one is gigabit on each port.

yeah edited my post

realized it as soon as I posted

vCole

tiersten wrote: »

That is actually a Linksys switch and doesn't run IOS. I assume if it can support QoS and PoE if you need it then it'd work okay for VoIP.

Well is there something cheaper that anyone knows of?

tiersten

FadeToBright wrote: »

Well is there something cheaper that anyone knows of?

That already is cheaper

I'd usually recommend you use a regular Cisco.

Netgear make some rackmounted GigE managed switches but the ones I've used are a bit weird in the firmware. I don't know how well the web only managed ones work.

vCole

tiersten wrote: »

That already is cheaper I'd usually recommend you use a regular Cisco.

Netgear make some rackmounted GigE managed switches but the ones I've used are a bit weird in the firmware. I don't know how well the web only managed ones work.

Well $400+ is too expensive for her..

I'm trying to ease the pain by finding similar models

kalebksp

What are your requirements for the switch?

A Cisco gigabit PoE switch is a pricey proposition. Especially since most IP Phones only have a 10/100 switch in them so if you wanted the gigabit speeds you'd need to run two cables to each desk.

If you can't afford the real Cisco equipment and want separate your voice and data network you could buy two switches, one gigabit and one PoE. It's not ideal, but it would work. Before I knew any better I built a small VoIP network that way, with unmanaged switches no less, so the data and voice wasn't segregated. Worked fine since it was such a small network.

networker050184

If you want to run QoS on the switch for VoIP I doubt you are going to find anything under $400.

vCole

networker050184 wrote: »

If you want to run QoS on the switch for VoIP I doubt you are going to find anything under $400.

Well that's the thing, we're unsure if we're even going VoIP! That's what concerns me...

jmoorse

HP Procurve switches are usually a viable option. Keep in mind they will not support any proprietary Cisco protocols (PVSTP+, VTP, ISL)

vCole

jmoorse wrote: »

HP Procurve switches are usually a viable option. Keep in mind they will not support any proprietary Cisco protocols (PVSTP+, VTP, ISL)

Yeah we have the HP Procurves right now 10/100 though...

GT-Rob

I think you first need to fully decide what your requirements are.

Do you really need gig interfaces? Do you really need PoE? Are you going VoIP or not? Because if you don't know, you can't make a proper purchase. Do you even need a managed switch at all?

You can get a 24port 10/100 unmanaged switch for as cheap as $35 on CDW.

mamono

Good time to develop a technology roadmap for the company. Where you are at, where you are going, and key points of where you would like to be at for certain time intervals. As GT-Rob said, you'll need to determine what you need because your company knows itself best. The recommendation by your outsourced network consultant is strictly that, a recommendation. He may not know all the details and requirements, but he will push and recommend a technology that he knows and understands to make his job easier. If you can spring for Cisco gear, awesome. If you have a technology base that you want to maintain, then continue along that path. There are also support costs to consider if going with something that your outsourced network consultant is not familiar with.

darkerosxx

Open Box deal on the switch you're looking for @ $292.50

vCole

darkerosxx wrote: »

Open Box deal on the switch you're looking for @ $292.50

unfortunately my boss won't buy open box, she's super paranoid

mamono

If she were to invest in Cisco equipment, you would get to play with it. More experience to you if you want to pursue Cisco certifications!

msteinhilber

FadeToBright wrote: »

unfortunately my boss won't buy open box, she's super paranoid

Super paranoid about buying open box, but also super cheap and wanting to skate by on lower end Linksys hardware... that's kind of ironic

I have two of the SRW2024's in our shop which is most unfortunate. They are notorious for terrible firmware from my experience. When we first got these the web interface was absolutely terrible, would time out often, take eternity to load regardless of the browser. Updated firmware fixed that at least, the default CLI is awful, if you get these and want to manage them via telnet/SSH - be sure to Ctrl Z to break out of the default interface and type "lcli" for a more Cisco like command line.

Both of my switches have random problems with dropping packets regardless of the port you are on and on a variety of various gig ethernet cards in our servers. One got RMA'ed through Linksys in an effort to stop the problem and it still persist with the replacement - take one of our spare HP ProCurve switches for our corporate LAN and toss it in there and it works great. Linksys support is also fairly annoying to work with, forcing you to waste a good half hour troubleshooting in the wrong direction before issuing an RMA as well.

I would first try to establish exactly what the company needs now, where the companies needs are likely to be in the near future, and then try to make a decision. If your boss is pressuring to come to a decision without knowing particulars such as if the switch will be carrying VoIP traffic then tell them they are mad. I wouldn't dare entrust my data and voice traffic on a Linksys switch, even before my bad experiences.

Maybe you could take a look at a lot of the reviews on this switch out there (I'm sure there are plenty of negative) and ask your boss how much downtime would impact the business fiscally and then propose a better switch instead.

Talic

I've also heard a lot of bad things about Linksys equipment, you may want to look at another brand Fade. Full branded Cisco would probably be better.

I guess Cisco outsourced their Linksys manufacturing to a pretty shotty company. It's funny how they get by on adding "by Cisco" to get more sales on their Linksys brands, yet when they started doing that their quality went down.

vCole

msteinhilber wrote: »

Super paranoid about buying open box, but also super cheap and wanting to skate by on lower end Linksys hardware... that's kind of ironic

I have two of the SRW2024's in our shop which is most unfortunate. They are notorious for terrible firmware from my experience. When we first got these the web interface was absolutely terrible, would time out often, take eternity to load regardless of the browser. Updated firmware fixed that at least, the default CLI is awful, if you get these and want to manage them via telnet/SSH - be sure to Ctrl Z to break out of the default interface and type "lcli" for a more Cisco like command line.

Both of my switches have random problems with dropping packets regardless of the port you are on and on a variety of various gig ethernet cards in our servers. One got RMA'ed through Linksys in an effort to stop the problem and it still persist with the replacement - take one of our spare HP ProCurve switches for our corporate LAN and toss it in there and it works great. Linksys support is also fairly annoying to work with, forcing you to waste a good half hour troubleshooting in the wrong direction before issuing an RMA as well.

I would first try to establish exactly what the company needs now, where the companies needs are likely to be in the near future, and then try to make a decision. If your boss is pressuring to come to a decision without knowing particulars such as if the switch will be carrying VoIP traffic then tell them they are mad. I wouldn't dare entrust my data and voice traffic on a Linksys switch, even before my bad experiences.

Maybe you could take a look at a lot of the reviews on this switch out there (I'm sure there are plenty of negative) and ask your boss how much downtime would impact the business fiscally and then propose a better switch instead.

I'll try that.

shednik

It sounds like you boss needs to check her priorities before she goes cheap on her technology solutions. To give you a prime example 2 weeks ago a client of ours decided to go with only one internet pipe with no backups even after being warned. Well there ended up being a 2 day outage that could have been avoided by having redundancy and investing the extra money in even a small T1 keep their E-commerce up. Making a long story short we spent 2 days troubleshooting it when we now believe it was a carrier change that caused all the issues. Even so trying to save money up front, you will pay for it somewhere along the line!!!

vCole

shednik wrote: »

It sounds like you boss needs to check her priorities before she goes cheap on her technology solutions. To give you a prime example 2 weeks ago a client of ours decided to go with only one internet pipe with no backups even after being warned. Well there ended up being a 2 day outage that could have been avoided by having redundancy and investing the extra money in even a small T1 keep their E-commerce up. Making a long story short we spent 2 days troubleshooting it when we now believe it was a carrier change that caused all the issues. Even so trying to save money up front, you will pay for it somewhere along the line!!!

Well she doesn't know hardware....or networking, so she doesn't understand.

dynamik

FadeToBright wrote: »

Well she doesn't know hardware....or networking, so she doesn't understand.

Draw pictures

vCole

She told me to order it....

/palm face

shednik

FadeToBright wrote: »

She told me to order it....

/palm face

I strongly suggest you advise her not to just buy things and plan out the long term goals first before just buying things. She will get burned at some point if she doesn't plan.

the_Grinch

Sounds like a boss I had....she wasn't good with technology (yet was the head of technology) and told the guys that they were to buy these specific tape drives for backups of the Mac servers. So they order them (about $10k a piece) get them and wait after doing an update to install them. Come to find out 10.4 Server didn't support the drives and neither Mac nor the company were planning on adding support. Now no tape drive back-ups (they lost a server while I was there) and they were out about $70k....

tiersten

Are you going to install it or will the consultant do it?

vCole

tiersten wrote: »

Are you going to install it or will the consultant do it?

Who knows, she'll probably have him do it.

vCole

shednik wrote: »

I strongly suggest you advise her not to just buy things and plan out the long term goals first before just buying things. She will get burned at some point if she doesn't plan.

oh I did, but she's been with the company for 20 years, and in IT for 10.

Ahriakin

One other thing to consider, especially when trying to move to Gigabit cheaply is the forwarding rate of the switch backplane. it may have 24 Gig ports but that does not meant it can handle then all running at even near capacity. As an example a 24x Gigabit switch at full capacity needs approx. 35Mpps, I couldn't find anything concrete on this switch but everything similar in it's price range was closer to 9-10mpps. How likely are you to need the full capacity depends on your environment but if you wanted a reliable gigabit network higher end is better.

vCole

Ahriakin wrote: »

One other thing to consider, especially when trying to move to Gigabit cheaply is the forwarding rate of the switch backplane. it may have 24 Gig ports but that does not meant it can handle then all running at even near capacity. As an example a 24x Gigabit switch at full capacity needs approx. 35Mpps, I couldn't find anything concrete on this switch but everything similar in it's price range was closer to 9-10mpps. How likely are you to need the full capacity depends on your environment but if you wanted a reliable gigabit network higher end is better.

We're in a factory, our backplane will be fiber.