Category Archives: Data Center Switch

Gigabit Managed Switch With VLAN Recommendation

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Gigabit managed switch with VLAN has become a preferable choice for enterprise and SMB networks over the years. With the greatest level of management and control, gigabit managed switch opens a door for network administrators to create a fully optimized network. Moreover, managed Gigabit Ethernet switch makes it possible to create VLANs and limit access to specific devices. All these features will eventually contribute to improve network reliability and levels of security. For getting cheap managed switch with VLAN capability, how to make the right choice? Here we recommend you several VLAN managed switches that well worth the money.

Gigabit Managed Switch With VLAN: What Are the Benefits?

VLAN has replaced traditional shared media LANs to become the choice of switching infrastructure. A VLAN (Virtual LAN) is a broadcast domain created by switches. Traditionally, it is a router creating that broadcast domain. With VLAN capability, now switch can create the broadcast domain and handle traffic more efficiently. Most Gigabit managed switches now are equipped with VLAN capability – it is used to segment a switch – or a physical network of switches – into multiple, logical layer 2 networks. A gigabit managed switch with VLAN helps prevent an end device from directly talking to another that are not in the same VLAN groups, unless such traffic first goes through a router. In this way, VLAN configurable Gigabit managed switch helps decrease the calculation time, improve overall performance and enhanced security levels.

what-is-vlan

Cheap Gigabit Managed Switch With VLAN

The market for gigabit managed switch with VLAN capability is booming, and suppliers in the industry compete to present products with advanced features and functions. The fierce competition even brings down the cost of Gigabit managed switch. In this section, we will take a review of some cheap VLAN switch, including HP ProCurve 1810G 24, Mikrotik CRS125-24G-1S-RM, TP-Link TL-SG2424, NetGear GSM7224R and ZyXEL GS1910-24. All of them are Gigabit managed network switch with VLAN capability, we summarized their features in the following diagram.

HP ProCurve 1810G 24 Mikrotik CRS125-24G-1S-RM TP-Link TL-SG2424 NetGear GSM7224R ZyXEL GS1910-24
Switching Capacity
48 Gbps
48 Gbps
48 Gbps
48 Gbps
48 Gbps
Power Consumption
–
15W
–
–
18W
10/100/1000 Ethernet ports
24
24
24
24
24v
SFP ports
2 shared
1
4 combo
4 combo
4 shared
Layer Supported
Layer 2
Layer 3
Layer 2
Layer 2
Layer 2
Price
$532.19
$205.97
$185.00
$281.63
$347.25
FS Optimized VLAN Configurable Gigabit Managed Switch

FS S2800-24T4F is a fanless Gigabit managed switch with VLAN feature that equipped with 24-port 100/1000BASE-T ports and 4 combo SFP slots. The fanless design makes it an energy-saving Ethernet access switches for small to medium-sized business, especially for those noise-sensitive open environment like labs, schools and cafes. This silent 24-port managed switch supports multiple configuration modes and flexible port combination. Which efficiently enhances data security through VLAN assignment, and VLAN trunks can be created from any port to realize port isolation- an individual switch port can be assigned to a logical LAN, then the next switch port can be easily assigned as a completely different logical LAN.

fs-gigabit-managed-switch-with-vlan

So, What Is Your Choice?

Although the overall budget is important when choosing a managed Gigabit switch with VLAN capability, there are still a variety of factors to account for, such as: port configuration, switching capacity, power consumption and switch class. The port configuration and speed determines the switching capacity. So you have to consider the amount of traffic to run through this managed Gigabit Ethernet switch and select one that can accommodate all the dataflow. Power consumption is also a very important aspect as it defines the operating cost in the long run, a power efficiency switch can save you a great amount of money. Another factor is where you would like to put this switch, if it is a noise-sensitive environment, fanless Gigabit managed switch is the best fit.

Conclusion

With increasing bandwidth requirements from applications and other services, you can unleash your network and enable maximum productivity with Gigabit managed switch with VLAN capacity. This post has compared the commonly used VLAN configurable managed Gigabit switches on the market, while provides some insights on the factors to choose the right one. Wish this would help you to make the right decision.

Related Article: QinQ vs VLAN vs VXLAN


PoE Switch VS. PoE+ Switch, Which Will You Choose?

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Many people choose to install POE (Power over Ethernet) switches for enterprise or home use. PoE technology is time-saving and money-saving for cable installation by carrying electrical power over network cable. In the market, if you are careful enough you can find some are marked as PoE switch and some are PoE+ switch. What’s the difference between these two switch? Can we use PoE switch vs. PoE+ switch? Find answers in the following article.

IEEE802.3af (PoE) and IEEE802.3at (PoE+) Standards

To answer this question , we have to learn these IEEE802.3af (PoE) and IEEE802.3at (PoE+) standards. IEEE802.3af standard was established in 2003, upgraded to IEEE802.3at in 2009. IEEE802.3af standard supports the network devices that require up to 13 W of electrical power. But it can’t meet the power needs of many devices. Therefore, IEEE802.3at standard was promoted to offer more power for high-power PoE devices, for instance, cameras with high-power IR illuminators, IP telephones, small network printers etc. The big difference between IEEE802.3af and IEEE802.3at is the maximum amount of power they provide over Cat5 cable. The maximum amount of power for the 802.3af standard is 15.4 W and the maximum for the 802.3at standard is 30 W. PoE switch and PoE+ switch are designed based on different IEEE standards.

PoE Switch VS. PoE+ Switch: What’s the Difference?

Let’s compare these switches: S1130-8T2F and S1250-8T2F. S1130-8T2F is an 8 port PoE switch with 2 SFP ports. S1250-8T2F is an 8 ports Gigabit PoE+ managed switch with 2 SFP ports. At first glance, these two switches look the same. Actually one is PoE switch and the other is PoE+ switch.

PoE switch vs.poe+ switch

Obviously, by comparison of above two types of switches, switching capacity, RJ45 ports and SFP+ ports, all are the same, except max. power consumption. The max. power consumption of S1130-8T2F is 130W while the S1250-8T2F is 250W. Max. power consumption of PoE switch is smaller than that of PoE+ switches.

PoE Switch v PoE+ Switch? Which One Should We Choose?

Many users may encounter this problem. Should we choose PoE switch or PoE+ switch? PoE network switch is cheaper. But PoE+ switch have some advantages over PoE switch.

  • More electrical power–PoE+ switch can provide 30W, nearly half of the electrical power to powered devices more than PoE switch.
  • Smart power budgeting–PoE+ switch includes scope for power sources and powered devices to communicate with each other to negotiate an allowance of electrical power.
  • PoE+ switch can support a more complete range of network equipment, including IP cameras with heater/blowers, and multichannel wireless access points.

To help you make better decision, I’ll take two types of 24-port switches as an example: S1400-24T4F PoE switch and S1600-24T4F PoE+ switch.

S1400-24T4F S1600-24T4F
24-port-poe-switch 24-port-poe+ switch
S1400-24T4F is a 24-port Gigabit PoE managed switch with 4 SFP ports, 400W. It’s compliant with IEEE 802.3af/at. It’s a good solution for SMB or entry-level enterprise which demands industrial, surveillance, IP Phone, IP Camera or Wireless applications. S1600-24T4F is a 24-port Gigabit PoE+ managed switch with 4 ports, 600W. It’s compliant with IEEE 802.3af/at, supporting the connection to VoIP phones, wireless APs and IP surveillance cameras for intelligent switching and networks growth. S1400-24T4F and S1600-24T4F support both 802.3af/at standards. They can fully allocate IEEE802.3af powered devices, and half allocate the IEEE802.3at powered devices. There aren’t too many differences between the two switches. S1400-24T4F is cheaper and S1600-24T4F provide more electrical power. Well, to choose S1400-24T4F (PoE switch) or S1600-24T4F (PoE+ switch), the decision depends on your needs and budgets. PoE switch is still employed by many users.

Can We Connect PoE Access Point with a PoE+ Switch?

PoE+ is compatible with PoE. POE+ switches can recognize 802.3af powered devices and enable PoE to them as normal. PoE+ powered devices can also be connected to 802.3af PoE switches, and are supposed to restrict how much power they use accordingly. As the above show, S1400-24T4F PoE switch and S1600-24T4F PoE+ switch are compatible with 802.3af/at standards. So can we connect a PoE access point with a PoE+ switch? The answer is yes. PoE Switch VS. PoE+ Switch: Do you get the difference between them now? Hope this article is helpful.

Related Article：PoE Switch vs. PoE Injector vs. PoE Splitter

Cisco ACI: Software-Defined & Hardware-Enabled Solution

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Cisco ACI (Application Centric Infrastructure) has already gained much early support from the its data center partners. By creating a new way to link networks and applications in a highly virtualized data center, Cisco ACI is considered as “a revolutionary re-thinking of how to provision and manage data center networks”. Which has the potential to completely shift the way that large, highly virtualized data center networks are configured and built. So what is Cisco ACI all about? How can ACI benefit our network? This article may explain it to you.

Cisco ACI: An Optimized Solution for Data Center

Cisco ACI mainly consists of two components. The first is the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC), which can be seen as a virtual machine. The APIC holds a database of application configuration information, and works to turn this information into network configurations and push those configurations into devices. The second is a set of real and virtual network devices that are optimized for ACI. For example, devices like Cisco’s Nexus 9300 switches when run in Cisco ACI mode and with ACI-supported line cards.

Cisco ACI deployment

Generally speaking, Cisco ACI is Cisco’s attempt to solve the prominent and significant problem of integration between applications and networks. With ACI, there’s no “closedness” in how you access the system. Servers and top-of-rack network switches can be changed without requiring associated re-definition of those models. The benefit is that organizations can rapidly provision and migrate resources based on application policy, reduce the cost of operations, shorten application deployment time and make “on the fly” changes. In a sense, Cisco ACI brings “just in time” provisioning of IT resources to the world of applications.

Cisco ACI for Data Center: More Than a Configuration Tool

Cisco ACI captures the “intent” of an application directly from the application owner, which allows for the application owner to control their network provisioning, creating a consistent and documented configuration in network elements. The data center network is thus presented as abstractions that make sense to the application owner. This simplifies scalability issues that tie up network managers, such as subnets, VLANs, virtual routers (VRF), and access control lists (ACL). Therefore, much less time will be spent on configuring, troubleshooting, and debugging data center configurations – which can be a pretty good thing for network managers. The advantages of Cisco ACI is listed as following.

Cisco ACI advantages

Cisco ACI builds the data center fabric on top of VXLAN, which allows any-to-any layer 2 connectivity – seems not a big deal in traditional server environments where each server stays connected to the same set of Ethernet ports all the time. But when data center moves to virtualization, a single physical server may have dozens of virtual servers, each with their own MAC address and their own layer 2 connectivity requirements. More importantly, as those virtual servers migrate between physical servers, there’s a requirement for the network to keep everything straight so that each virtual server is properly connected to its VLAN and subnet. In this case, the ACI-aware VXLAN fabric in Nexus 9300 makes a critical and valuable part of the system. The following picture shows Cisco ACI fabric topology with Nexus 9300 switches.

Cisco ACI fabric

Cisco ACI Moves Data Centers to the Cloud

Since the early goal of Cisco ACI is to offer customers alternative on how and where they run applications, it now supports multiple hypervisors, bare metal servers, and Linux containers on premise and has become the most open, flexible and widely deployed SDN in the industry. ACI presents an ideal choice to enhance operational efficiencies, deliver network automation, and improve security for their on-premises data centers and private clouds. And it has stretch the reach to public cloud domain. Consequently, ACI enables users more flexibility to run applications across their private clouds and public clouds, with the ability to maintain consistent network policies across their entire multimode domain.

Conclusion

Cisco ACI combines traditional switching technologies with advanced management and automation capabilities, allowing the customers to shorten application deployment time, streamline operations and reduce operating expenses. As a member of Cisco’s popular Nexus 9300 switch family, Nexus 9372PX is a ACI-supported switch using as a leaf nodes in Cisco ACI fabric. FS N5850-48S6Q 10gb switch has the same port configuration as ACI-enabled Nexus 9372PX: 48 fixed 10G SFP+ ports and 6 fixed 40G QSFP+ ports that delivers 1.44 Tbps of bandwidth, but with only a fraction of the cost. FS offers a wide range of solutions to help deploy N5850-48S6Q in your data center, visit www.fs.com for more tech support.




Comparison Between 10Gb Switch Under $550

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Industrial Ethernet has fast become the network of choice for the interconnection of data center devices, due to its incredible speed, bandwidth, and flexibility. The market for network switch is booming as vendors compete to develop items with advanced features and functions. This, however, makes the simple choice of an Ethernet switch overly complex. 10Gb switch is often used as access or leaf switch (depending on your network architecture) in data centers, the importance of which cannot be underestimated. This article will compare some cost-effective 10Gb switches on the market, each of which costs less than $550.

Options of 10Gb Switch Under $550

In this section, we will take a brief review of some 10Gb switches that cost less than $550. The following is a 10GB network switch comparison.

MikroTik CRS226-24G-2S+IN

This switch combines the features of a fully functional router and a Layer 3 10Gb Ethernet switch. It enables ports to be removed from the switch configuration and used for routing purposes. The CRS226 has 24 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports and two SFP+ ports for 10G connectivity.

MikroTik CRS226-24G-2S+RM

CRS226-24G-2S+RM is a fully functional Layer 3 10Gb network switch. It has 24 Gigabit ports and two SFP+ cages for 10G connectivity (first SFP port supports 1.25G/10G modules, second port only 10G modules).

MikroTik CRS210-8G-2S+IN

Featuring small size and low cost, this fully functional router and a Layer 3 10Gb switch come with 8 Gigabit Ethernet ports and two SFP+ cages for 10G connectivity (first port supports 1.25G/10G modules, second port only 10G modules).

D-Link DGS-1510-28X

The DGS-1510-28X is a smart managed 10Gb switch that contains 24 10/100/1000 Mbps ports plus 4 10G SFP+ ports. It is ideal for deployments in the SME/SMB core with its 10G uplinks connecting with servers equipped with 10G port connectivity. For medium to large scale enterprise deployment, it can serve as a good interconnection between the core switch and edge switch.

D-Link DGS-1510-20

The DGS-1510-20 contains 16 10/100/1000 Mbps ports, 2 Gigabit SFP ports and 2 10G SFP+ ports. It belongs to D-link DGS-1510 series like DGS-1510-28X, providing a reliable, scalable, and modular interconnection with rich capabilities and simplified flexibility.

Ubiquiti ES-48-Lite EdgeSwitch

Ubiquiti ES-40-Lite is a fully managed 10Gb switch that delivers robust performance and intelligent switching for growing networks. It offers both Layer 2 switching features and Layer 3 routing capability, supporting 48 10/100/1000 Mbps RJ45 Ethernet ports, 2 1/10 Gbps SFP+ Ethernet ports and 1 Gbps SFP Ethernet ports.

ZyXEL XGS1910-24

The ZyXEL XGS1910-24 is a smart 10Gb switch built to fulfill increasing network demands for small and medium businesses (SMB). With 20 10/100/1000 ports, 4 combo Gigabit SFP ports and 2 x 10 Gigabit SFP+ ports, it allows SMBs to deliver higher bandwidth for congestion relief and smooth data delivery.

FS S3900 Switch

FS S3900 series, which currently involves three modules, is a high-performance 10G L2+ stackable switch perfect for Service providers (ISPs) and Multiple System Operators (MSOs). Moreover, they’re ideal for SMB, enterprise, and campus networks. Compared with other non-stackable switches, the stackable switch series have their own benefits: higher port density, higher speed, and easier management. These series are all managed switches which comply with the IEEE 802.3az specification. The SFP+ ports can be connected via transceivers and patch cables or via DAC or AOC directly for stacking, making the stacked switches one unit. With an advanced feature set, S3900 series is designed to bring high availability, comprehensive security, robust multicast control, and advance QoS to the network edge, while maintaining simple management.

FS S3900-24T4S Switch

With 128 Gbps switching capacity, the S3900-24T4S switch has 24 Gigabit RJ45 ports and 4 x 10 Gbps SFP+ ports, which enables high performance and flexibility. The 4 built-in 10G SFP+ ports support uplinks and stack links of up to 10 Gbps, increasing the performance of access network.

FS S3900-24T4S Switch 10Gb switch

FS S3900-48T4S Switch

Equipped with 48 x 100/1000Mbps RJ45 Gigabit ports, the S3900-48T4S switch affords large switching capacity and achieves great forwarding performance. In addition, S3900-48T4S switch offers low power consumption and 1+1 redundancy power, ensuring high network reliability and availability.

FS S3900-48T4S Switch 10Gb switch

FS S3900-24F4S Switch

Apart from 20 x 1Gbps SFP ports and 4 x 10Gbps SFP+ ports, the S3900-24F4S switch has 4 combo SFP and 4 RJ45 combo ports, therefore making it possible to meet users’ needs to configure their unique application requirements—to use both copper and fiber cabling to achieve 1G transmission. In all, S3900-24F4S should be taken into consideration to achieve flexibility and reliability.

FS S3900-24F4S Switch 10Gb switch

10Gb Switch: How to Make the Final Decision?

Besides the cost, there are still a variety of factors to weigh when choosing a 10Gb network switch, such as port configuration, switching capacity, power consumption, and switch class. To make it simple, we use the chart below to further illustrate it.

Switch Price Switching Capacity Power Consumption 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports Gigabit SFP SFP+ ports Layer Supported
MikroTik CRS226-24G-2S+IN $289.00 88 Gbps 21W 24 / 2 Layer 3
MikroTik CRS226-24G-2S+RM $299.00 88 Gbps 21W 24 / 2 Layer 3
MikroTik CRS210-8G-2S+IN $229.00 56 Gbps 13W 8 / 2 Layer 3
D-Link DGS-1510-28X $394.99 128 Gbps 22.3W 24 / 4 Layer 2/3
D-Link DGS-1510-20 $292.88 76 Gbps 20.3W 16 2 2 Layer 2/3
Ubiquiti ES-48-Lite $374.55 140 Gbps 56W 48 2 2 Layer 2
ZyXEL XGS1910-24 $544.50 88 Gbps 32W 20 4 combo 2 Layer 2
FS S3900-24T4S $280.00 128 Gbps 21W 24 / 4 Layer 2+
FS S3900-48T4S $410.00 176 Gbps 45W 48 / 4 Layer 2+
FS S3900-24F4S $400.00 128 Gbps 43W 4 combo 20 4 Layer 2+

We can conclude from the chart that, apart from the price. The port configuration and speed also matters when purchasing a 10gb switch. These two factors determine the switching capacity. So you have to consider the amount of traffic to run through the 10Gb switch and select one that can accommodate all the dataflow. Power consumption is also a very important aspect as it defines the operating cost in the long run. Think about tens of thousands of network switch in a middle-sized data center, a power efficiency switch can save you a great amount of money.

Conclusion

10GbE switch is the most effective solution for labs or small deployments. This article compares only a fraction of the important parameters of these 10 Gigabit switches. Once you have gone through all these factors,  the choice can thus be made based on your specific condition. Are there any other factors your organization considers when preparing to buy a switch 10Gb? What do you think are the most important factors? Post your comments below.

Related Article: 10G ToR/Leaf Ethernet Switch: What Is the Right Choice??

FS.COM LAN Access 10G Switch Analysis



Cost Comparison of 10G Leaf Switch and 40G Spine Switch

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The growth of network users and the virtualized and automated trend in network have called for a great change in the macro network infrastructure. The “old” three-tier network architecture, namely core, aggregation and access, is quickly proved to be inefficient in modern complicated network environment. So what’s next to replace the outdated frame? After my research, the best I currently find is the flatter leaf-spine network architecture, which surpasses the traditional one with improved switch capacity and much lower latency. This blog will give the cost comparison of 10G leaf switch and 40G spine switch.

three-tier network is outdated

In order to help buying a suitable network switch when scaling the efficient leaf-spine architecture, I will compare some different brands’ 10G leaf switch (48*10G SFP+ and 6*40G QSFP+) and 40G spine switch (32*40G QSFP+) in this post. It should be noted that each 10gb switch and 40gb switch price shown below is based on my own research, and I cannot promise that you can get one at the same price, since there are cases of discount, charged shipping, or tax. But you can take it as a reference. And welcome to add new information or to correct mistakes.

10G Leaf Switch (48*10G SFP+ and 6*40G QSFP+), switch capacity being 1.44Tbps.

Brand Model CPU ASIC NOS Online Base Price (US$)
Edge-Core AS5812-54X X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Cumulus Linux $4,438.07 ~ $4,889.75
Agema AG7648 X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Agema OS & OcNOSTM $5,995.00
Cisco Nexus 9372PX X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS) $9,505.00 ~ $21,318.16
Dell S4048-ON X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Cumulus Linux $2,250.00 ~ $2,850.00
Juniper QFX5100-48S X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Juniper Operating System (JunOS) $24,299.00 ~ $25,942.00
Brocade VDX 6740 X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Brocade Fabric OS $16,815.82 ~ $19,369.99
HPE Altoline 6920 X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 HPE Comware $11,209.66 ~ $12,792.00
Huawei CE6851 X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Huawei Operating System (OS) $6,379.95 ~ $11,238.08

40G spine switch (32*40G QSFP+), switch capacity being 2.56 Tbps.

Brand Model CPU ASIC NOS Online Base Price (US$)
Edge-Core AS6712-32X X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Cumulus Linux $7,571.95 ~ $14,124.16
Agema AG8032 X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Agema OS & OcNOSTM $8,495.00
Cisco Nexus 9332PQ X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Cisco IOS $17,617.21 ~ $18,673.15
Dell S6000-ON X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Cumulus Linux $ 29,476.80
Juniper QFX5100-24Q X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 JunOS $29,313.83 ~ $32,949.99
Brocade VDX 6940 X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Brocade Fabric OS $21,546.46 ~ $24,036.81
HPE Altoline 6940 X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 HPE Comware $15,354.38 ~ $15,739.68
Huawei CE7850 X86-64 Broadcom Trident2 Huawei OS $13,737.60 ~ $23,000.00

These open networking leaf and spine switches are almost all adopting Broadcom Trident 2 chip and the Intel 64 processor, the major difference between them lies in the software. Some big brand switches deploy their own network operating system while some support licensed Cumulus Linux OS.

FS provides not only high performance 10G leaf switch (S9000-48S6Q, 48*10G SFP+ and 6*40G QSFP+) and 40G spine switch (S9000-32Q, 32*40G QSFP+) that have excellent Broadcom Trident 2 switching chip and licensed Cumulus Linux OS, and customers also enjoy the easiest addressing of both hardware and software problems. When you buy open networking switch at FS, you can also get certified optics and cables, and professional software support effortlessly and at low cost.

10G leaf switch

The base prices listed above do not include accessories like optics and fiber optic cables, or the software and hardware support cost. And only a few vendors I know can provide certified optics and cables, and expert software and hardware support at the same time. One-stop experience could only be found at vendors like Cumulus Networks (Cumulus Express service) and FS (Fiberstore). As you know that building a high performance networking is never only about switch, it would be better if simple and all-in-one approach could be provided in switch installation.