Kitz Forum
Computers & Hardware => Other Technologies & Hardware => Topic started by: Weaver on June 06, 2018, 12:40:14 AM
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I have talked about this before, I realise. I’d like an update / recap.
What LAN switches do people recommend?
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Surely that is a question akin to me asking how long is that ball of string, which I am going to bat around the floor and unravel (much to everybody's annoyance)?
Perhaps if you were to list your requirements, in priority order, then, I'm sure, suggestions will be posted.
- Managed or unmanaged?
- Gigabit or megabit capable?
- Type of port: electrical or optical?
- Number of ports?
- Power supply: Dual redundant? AC or DC?
Etc, etc.
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- PSU AC, not dual-redundant required
- Gigabit unless 10G is cheap now.
- One optical port nice to have but not 100% essential, perhaps to run to one other distant switch.
- 16, preferably 24 ports
- Easy to use by extremely thick people
- good docs a big plus
- administration friendly: process of backing up the config file needs to be clean, config file would ideally be sane, readable config file a big plus, something that one can edit with a text editor also a big plus, even better a config file format that is machine-parse friendly. eg XML would be ideal
- Managed
- No requirement for ‘L3’-ness
- no PoE - no can't afford it
- Silent. If fan then dual fans
- Cool running
- jumbo frames, 10kB, well 9kiB+, whatever it is, essential
- I don't know if there is such a thing as a switch that can (i) capture traffic for n seconds, or (ii) record various sorts of traffic stats long-term
- Very full feature list, whatever on earth that means, relatively anyway within a particular mfr’s product range subset
- top-spec QoS support, mapping to queues by protocol matching and other criteria esp by packet size. Must be able to recognise VoIP, RTP and eg DNS queries, TCP ACKs
- full IPv6 awareness in L3 related matters and in admin
- nice-to-haves, plus points for: internal LAN malefactor security features: eg
- anti ARP-spoofing, MAC lockdown poss
- anti-bogus DHCP
- IPv6 RA guard
- top-end ‘Cisco’ (possibly really Linksys) SMB-oriented cheap switches have most of these features, as an aide memoire. Stuff to keep guests under control if they get up to no good also to stop them attacking the router
I would also be just generally interested in what people are using right now.
About QoS: I suppose I am completely out of luck even thinking of trying to do QoS on downstream because there is no queue content to manage. Is that right? Unless you could indirectly ‘remote control’ downstream activity by controlling the timing of related packets in the upstream, such as ACKs or repeated queries going upstream that generate a lot of downstream packets in response. You could prioritise or de-prioritise those, maybe even hold them back (? ugh) whatever to try and manage the related downstream as best you can, when of course the QoS for downstream needs located to be at the other end of the downstream path bottleneck. No?
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I had a feeling that you had a comprehensive list of requirements . . . and your above list confirms that suspicion! :)
Perhaps other member will provide suggestions based on their own equipment usage, especially when there is a match with one or more of your requirements.
My feeling is that you will need to look at equipment from Cisco, HP, Juniper or the likes. The top end products from Netgear or ZyXEL may also be worth considering.
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Have a look at some of the Cisco SOHO offerings. I have a 10 port Cisco Small Business SG300-1, does all you mention above, but it's only 10 prts. More than I need though!
It does have a 10Ge port, but I don't have an SFP or another matching switch as yet. But that's my plan longer term...
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@sotonsam Thanks I definitely will. I read the docs for one of the similar Cisco models and so I was heading that way. That reading also guided my thinking about what I wanted.