Anyone love/hate the PowerConnect line of switches from Dell?

Question

I am looking at replacing some unmanaged 16 port store bought GB switches and wanted to go with Cisco but it may be cost prohibitive.

Instead I am looking at ProCurve or Dell's PowerConnect line up.

I am looking for SNMP, Management, VLANs, and SFLOW would icing on the switch cupcake.

I would get the 6224 or the 6248 and then maybe add the RPS-600 to it for redundant power.

I think the RPS-600 supports multiple switches.

Rackspace is also a little challenge so I am trying to do it with as little Rack Units as possible.

Ideally I would go with two 6224's or a single 6248 and then do two VLANs.

Thanks for any feedback.

Rob

Solution 1

PowerConnect switches are OEM'd by Delta Networks, from Taiwan.

I'm using 6248's and 6224's with two Customers (one using powered and one usign non-powered versions). They're much cheaper than a feature-similiar Cisco switch, and they've worked well. The first Customer got theirs in late 2007, and the second in fall of 2008.

We're only using layer-3 functionality on the 62xx's at one Customer site, but it has been working well. They do not have very fancy layer-3 entities, but then you should probably be usign a router if you need really fancy. I am using layer-2 VLANs at both sites, and they work fine.

We have the RPS-600 on both installations and I've verified that the RPS works as advertised. (In fact, the cabling company pulled the UPS feeding the AC on the switches, but not the RPS, and no one at the Customer site noticed they'd been running on RPS for several days.)

I recently upgraded the firmware on the older installation and one of the switches continually reported a problem with its flash filesystem. I called Dell support and they sent out a replacement switch with very few questiosn asked.

We opted, since the switches were so inexpensive (as compared to the warranty support), to purchase a "cold standby" switch at each site in lieu of fancy on-site warranty. The entire switch stack, in the case of the 2007 Customer, w/ three 6248's and an RPS-600, cost less than a single one of the 48-port Cisco switch a vendor quoted (a 3560, I think... I don't recall now. It was expensive.).

The configuration command-line interface is Cisco-esque and close enough that I almost forget that I'm using a non-Cisco switch. (The "configure" command not taking the "terminal" argument irritates me-- I'm all the time typing "conf term".) The web interface is reasonable, though I prefer the CLI.

We are using MRTG at both sites to collect statistics from these switches. They work as expected w/ respect to SNMP.

Solution 2

Don't have too much experience with the Dells but I can vouch for the ProCurve switches. We use the 2910 series and they have been great. Lots of features, a good serial/terminal interface as well as a nice HTTP front-end. Also very nice is that they have a lifetime warranty with next-day replacement included at no extra cost.

Among the other admins I know they have a solid reputation for being the Cisco alternative if you don't want to pay the Cisco premium. Based on my experiences so far, I'd agree with that sentiment.

Solution 3

I've had good luck so far with the 3com 2948's (http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/detail.jsp?pathtype=purchase&tab=features&sku=3CBLSG48). Very nice options, solid interface, and seem stable. I've got a pair of them, and I haven't regretted it.

Comments

[Rob Bergin]

Yeah I like the 2910 alot - basically think its like the 5200 or the 6200 depending on the backplane speeds and overall throughput.

[Rob Bergin]

Evan - do the switches run on AC power and the RPS at the same time? I thought the RPS replaced the AC power with RPS power?

[Spence]

The switches will handle running off the RPS, their internal AC supplies, or both. I'm sure they're only really using one or the other at a time, but both can be plugged-in.

[Justin Scott]

Second HP ProCurve switches. We have these deployed for core and distribution in the racks for our web clusters and they work very well.