[CentOS] [OT] Network switches

[Luke S Crawford]

Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> writes:
> If you get a service contract on any piece of Cisco equipment, you 
> typically get download access to all of the firmware updates.  

Yeah, but the problem for me is that for my frontend network, 100M is just
fine.  A used cisco 3548 is going to set me back around $200.  For my frontend,
it looks like a fine switch (my only question is... will it handle IPv6?   
it does vlan tunneling so worst case I use a linux box to route my IPv6.)  
Getting access to firmware updates is 5x that, every year.

I've had an ancient cat 2924 at a backup location online for several years
now.  No problems, it pushes packets at 100M just fine, it's span capabilities
even work.  I've gotten lucky as far as security goes.  But it doesn't really
make sense to replace it with a better switch.  the upstream switch 
above it is a SMC of similar age.  

> in a lot of scenarios there are several choices, each with a different 
> set of bugs that you won't know about unless you open a TAC case and 
> tell an engineer exactly what features have to work for you.

Yeah, but at the used prices for 100M kit, I can buy two or three, and test
it out to my heart's content.   I mean, my experience with support
(working for clients who can afford such things)  is that you have to 
understand the problem to get someone else to fix it anyhow, and usually 
understanding the problem is the hard part.  Once you understand the problem,
fixing it is trivial.  So I don't usually think it makes sense to pay for
support, especially when the equipment cost is such that I have a few spares
laying about in the lab.