On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 10:59 AM, nate <centos at linuxpowered.net> wrote: > Rainer Duffner wrote: > >> Switch performance is extremely difficult to measure IMO. You need >> enough clients to make sure you're not accidentally measuring >> client-performance. > > There's also a lot more to switches than pure performance, line > rate switches have been around for at least a decade(switches > that have enough bandwidth to have every port running at 100% > utilization). > > If your running only a layer 2 network(who does that anymore?) > then perhaps performance is the best measure, but for the > well known top performing manufacturers of gear raw performance > hasn't been something to be concerned about for some time in > the 10/100 and GigE space. i would not be surprised if most SOHO networks may not even have layer 2 manageablity. How do you know it isn't something to be concerned about unless you have data from various manufacturers and various NICs? > > Now 10GigE is still kind of new as far as high density line > rate, most chassis switches are not even line rate if you > fully populate them with 10Gig ports. > > IMO - > > (no particular order) > HP - Good for the lifetime warranty, lower support(contract) > costs. Advantages for an HP shop since they likely tie in > nicely to HP management tools. > Extreme - Mature next-gen linux-based OS that's easy to use, > lots of advanced functionality included out of the > box. With a couple exceptions, line rate for 10+ years. > Force10 - Leader in port density and switch performance, though > it's been a couple years since I've seen a new > product, most of their products are 4+ years old but > still compete extremely well even today. NetBSD next-gen > OS, still kind of new. Line rate since their inception > almost a decade ago. Looks like they just released a new > 10gig chassis yesterday. Was the undisputed 10gig leader > for a while, others have since caught up, though this > new product may put them way ahead again haven't looked > in depth. > Foundry(now Brocade) - Another leader in port density and > switch performance, best known perhaps for it's interface > clone of IOS. So if your used to Cisco you can adapt to > these pretty easily and get much better performance. Not > sure where they are at on their next gen OS. Line rate > for a long time, perhaps 10+ years too. Unlike Extreme > and Force10 Foundry offers products targeted specifically > to do high performance routing(NetIron), as well as > load balancing(ServerIron). Most of their edge switches > are 1.5U instead of 1U, though they include hot swap > internal power supplies. Most vendors rely on external > power supplies for redundancy. Foundry used to have some > non Ethernet offerings(e.g. T1, DS3 etc), but have since > like many others eliminated all non Ethernet products. > Cisco - overpriced, under performing almost across the board, I'm > looking at replacing some older Cisco 7300 routers(which > they still sell), with something from Foundry, their LOW > end router is more than seven hundred times faster than > the Cisco 7300, and the price is comparable. Cisco has > a broad range of operating systems. Management is > incredibly complex. Can be a "one stop shop" for most things > network related, but while they share a common brand don't > let them fool you into making you think they are well > integrated and easy to use. > > Juniper - Somewhat new to the basic switch space though their > 48-port 1Gig 1U switches are feature packed with gobs of > flash, RAM, hot swap fan trays and power supplies > (rare for a 1U switch), and a very fast stacking port(over > 100Gbps if I recall). Juniper is of course best known for > it's routers, and more recently firewalls after it bought > NetScreen(?) a few years ago. I think their new switches > use the same BSD(FreeBSD perhaps?) based OS that their > high end routers do, if so it's very mature on the > software side. > > 3COM - Not familiar to much with their recent products though > personally weary of the company itself, it's working hard > to get back into the enterprise space after abandoning it > a decade or more ago. > > Linksys/NetGear/D-link/etc - if this is your price point then > that's your price point, I'd suggest at least getting > a good set of layer 3 switches for the network core. If you don't have metrics justifying thousands more for the same number of ports, then it is hard to justify to the boss. > > > I personally have kept very close eyes on Extreme, Force10 and > Foundry's product lines for 5 years or so, and more recently > looking at Juniper as well. The sort of technology behind these > products is very interesting to me, I'm the sort of person who > will spend hours reading data and spec sheets on them. > > I only have personal experience with Extreme, Cisco, and Linksys > (1 switch). > > nate > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >