[BBLISA] Reliable stupid switches?

[stephen wadlow]

> On Oct 8, 2016, at 7:31 AM, Dan Ritter <dsr-bblisa at randomstring.org> wrote:
> 
> Advice and experience requested:
> 
> Looks like I'm going to be in the market for some reliable
> stupid switches.
> 
> If I wanted managed switches, I would use Juniper EX. We already
> have them installed; they are exceedingly clever and I can
> stack together four or five of them in a loop and have lots of
> redundancy and a single image.
> 
> But this application is stupid: 150ish gig-e ports, no VLANs,
> no LAGs except between switches (unless they have a few 10 gig
> ports, in which case no LAGs at all. No PoE. No routing, no
> mirror ports.
> 
> Does anyone have years of happiness with stupid 48-port gig-e
> switches? Let me know what you like, or what initially looks
> ok and turns out to be bad in practice.

Are you adverse tapping  the  second-hand market?

You know and like Juniper (as do I), so why not stick with what you know, but just pay less for them?
I see this:  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Juniper-EX3200-48T-48-Port-Gigabit-RJ45-Switch-1-Year-Warranty-/262656695705 <http://www.ebay.com/itm/Juniper-EX3200-48T-48-Port-Gigabit-RJ45-Switch-1-Year-Warranty-/262656695705>
which is a slightly older model, but still quite serviceable.  You can find roughly similar prices for the EX42000s as well.

If you’re careful with how you do it, then you have better options for device re-use if the stupid application gets a better solution from smart people.

Cheap switches exist, but I think you still do better on the second-hand juniper market.  Efficiency in being able to say “I can plug in the juniper
and be ready to go in 30 minutes” vs “ok, I’ve never seen this switch before, let me spend 2-3 hours getting familiar with it and learning what stupid things I need to turn off” will go a long way for me.

The down side is that you might not be able to get juniper support.  For those prices, you can just keep a spare or two and still come out ahead.

					-Steve

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