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Managed Switch Setup

P

pollardhimself

Senior member
Looking at getting a dell powerconnect 5448 gigabit managed switch. Never had any experience with a managed switch what is involved with setting up a managed switch and getting it working
 
If you just want connectivity, just plug it in and go. If you want to manage it to setup VLANs and such you'll need to either use a console cable (assuming Dell switches have a console port) or figure out the default IP and ssh into it.
 
Nothinman said:
If you just want connectivity, just plug it in and go. If you want to manage it to setup VLANs and such you'll need to either use a console cable (assuming Dell switches have a console port) or figure out the default IP and ssh into it.
Click to expand...

Alright so I can just plug it in an it will work. that's all I really wanted I figured I would mess with all the other stuff later once I get a better understanding of it.
 
One would hope so, switching packets is dead easy but if anyone could make it not work right out of the box it would be Dell.
 
pollardhimself said:
Looking at getting a dell powerconnect 5448 gigabit managed switch. Never had any experience with a managed switch what is involved with setting up a managed switch and getting it working
Click to expand...

If you're planning to do any kind of more advanced configuration, STAY AWAY FROM THE DELL! They tend to forget that they have ports configured as trunks, so your router-on-a-stick configuration randomly stops working.

If you're planning to use it as a dumb switch, that's fine. I've used them as such because they're the cheapest non-Cisco PoE switches that support legacy Cisco phones (with a reverse polarity dongle). But every time I've tried to use them in a more advanced configuration, I have had problems.
 
drebo said:
If you're planning to do any kind of more advanced configuration, STAY AWAY FROM THE DELL! They tend to forget that they have ports configured as trunks, so your router-on-a-stick configuration randomly stops working.

If you're planning to use it as a dumb switch, that's fine. I've used them as such because they're the cheapest non-Cisco PoE switches that support legacy Cisco phones (with a reverse polarity dongle). But every time I've tried to use them in a more advanced configuration, I have had problems.
Click to expand...

Sounds like most of Dell's product lines. Cheap and good for stuff that you don't really care about.
 
Just watch out for spanning-tree. The ports may go through the listening/learning phases before the forward frames which takes 30 seconds. This can cause problems with DHCP and other start up services that try to communicate during those 30 seconds. It's enough to time them out.

I don't know what the defaults are for dell. But if you're going to mess with managed switches a basic understanding of spanning-tree will help tremendously.
 
spidey07 said:
Just watch out for spanning-tree. The ports may go through the listening/learning phases before the forward frames which takes 30 seconds. This can cause problems with DHCP and other start up services that try to communicate during those 30 seconds. It's enough to time them out.

I don't know what the defaults are for dell. But if you're going to mess with managed switches a basic understanding of spanning-tree will help tremendously.
Click to expand...


Yeah I hate a the dell utilities they install I remove them all dont know why they bother
Alright.. Well what would you recommend for a managed gigabit switch that in the 800-1200 price range?
 
drebo said:
If you're planning to do any kind of more advanced configuration, STAY AWAY FROM THE DELL! They tend to forget that they have ports configured as trunks, so your router-on-a-stick configuration randomly stops working.

If you're planning to use it as a dumb switch, that's fine. I've used them as such because they're the cheapest non-Cisco PoE switches that support legacy Cisco phones (with a reverse polarity dongle). But every time I've tried to use them in a more advanced configuration, I have had problems.
Click to expand...

Whats the point of ordering this in a managed switch then? I can order a dumb switch for less than half the price
 
pollardhimself said:
Whats the point of ordering this in a managed switch then? I can order a dumb switch for less than half the price
Click to expand...

From what it sounds like, you don't intend to use the managed portions of the switch anyway (STP, VLANs, port security, etc).

If you need those features, my suggestion is to stay away from the Dell switches. My example about the PoE was that there are some small reasons to use Dell switches, but for general L2 managed switches, go with something else.

HP ProCurves are fairly decent. But, I'm with spidey: go Cisco and you can't go wrong.
 
I have no experience with procurve, but I do with Cisco. Cisco just runs. Uptime in to the years is not uncommon with out a single error etc.

To be fair procurve may do the same, I just haven't used them yet. Problem with Dell tends to be that they make none of their own and most times don't even stick to the same company for different versions of the switches. I have had some the worked great but had annoying bugs like the web interface would crash until the switch was rebooted. During this time however it worked exactly as expected. I have had others forget about vlans. It seems random. That makes me nervous. I moved the 48 porter to the shelf. Even though a firmware update did stablize it I was tired of the weirdness. My 2716 has been relegated to life in the 'backend network' as a dumb gig switch that uplinks in to a vlan on one of the Cisco Cores etc.
 
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How are there dumb switches? May just go with one of these since there managed switches are crap and any good managed switches are out of the budget range. Does the iscsi optimized crap work on the managed one I just got a server with some 15k iscsi drives. Just trying to decided the best route

Looking at
PowerConnect 2848 48 Port Switch
 
pollardhimself said:
How are there dumb switches? May just go with one of these since there managed switches are crap and any good managed switches are out of the budget range. Does the iscsi optimized crap work on the managed one I just got a server with some 15k iscsi drives. Just trying to decided the best route

Looking at
PowerConnect 2848 48 Port Switch
Click to expand...

The Dell SAN I have runs on Dell 6224 'iSCSI optimized' switches and works ok. I had to back out of the new firmware (on the switches) though for stability reasons.
 
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I may end up messing with a vlan because we are going to start hosting our own email and webpage so I may divide out network up. I guess Ill just try the dell 5448 if it wont accomplish what I need Ill get them to put in a new cisco switch for the budget for next year
 
pollardhimself said:
I may end up messing with a vlan because we are going to start hosting our own email and webpage so I may divide out network up. I guess Ill just try the dell 5448 if it wont accomplish what I need Ill get them to put in a new cisco switch for the budget for next year
Click to expand...

Cisco 2960s are pretty cheap. Also remember that vlans are NOT a security feature.
 
pollardhimself said:
Cant find a gigabit 48 port 2960 for $1200 anywhere.
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1200 is extremely cheap for a decent 48 port gigabit switch. Double the budget. 3750s go for 10 grand for a 48 port.

This is the network we're talking about here, the most important part. 1200 is less than an single business class PC and you're talking about a device the provides service to 48 PCs.
 
spidey07 said:
1200 is extremely cheap for a decent 48 port gigabit switch. Double the budget. 3750s go for 10 grand for a 48 port.

This is the network we're talking about here, the most important part. 1200 is less than an single business class PC and you're talking about a device the provides service to 48 PCs.
Click to expand...

True True.. I just spent $8000 on the new server but, For now I just need a 48 port gigabit switch thats decent I dont care if it managed or unmanaged I just want the best I can get for $1200 since thats all I figured for a switch
 
Nothinman said:
One would hope so, switching packets is dead easy but if anyone could make it not work right out of the box it would be Dell.
Click to expand...

LOL... sorry that got me 😀

I don't have any experience with Dell's switch, so I can't tell you much about it. Out of the box, most managed switches are setup assuming all ports are within the same vlan, and usually have minimal QOS settings enabled.



Back on topic, best you are probably going to do for $1200 is a HP ProCurve Switch 2510G-48.
 
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i use the 2510G-48 for a ton of pc's and run iscsi (lightly dev work), nfs, and smb so i can light up 10 or 20 ports at full gigabit and its stable. just login to the web and turn off the auto-safety option that can shutdown a port if there are alot of errors. that can really mess your stuff up if it takes its perogative to kill a port.

the only thing nicer is the 2910al - the rest of the switches all use the same core asic and packet switch capacity. the 2910al is far more expensive.

hp is always cool with pre-shipping a replacement to you - no need for carepack or yearly maintenance. they even keep enough switches so they won't pull a dell on you - upgrade your switch 5 years later. yeah that switch was configured and working well - i want the same thing - not a brand new switch which may or may not work the same and definitely needs to be re-architected from scratch.
 
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You should get zero errors on a full duplex connection. If you do something is wrong. That feature is telling you something is wrong.
 
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