[Cialug] OT: Network Switches

[David Champion]

Nathan C. Smith wrote:

> Anybody have a strong opinions on enterprise switches?
> 
> I used to swear by 3Com, they have adopted a new support policy so now I
> swear at them: You have to purchase a support contract now where firmware
> updates used to be free.  I suppose most vendors have come to this
> conclusion.  Blame the second-hand market I guess.
> 
> Cisco - like BMW? - a quality product - but you pay too much of a premium
> for the name.
> 
> I'd rather not use any of the above any more.  Anybody care to share their
> thoughts on why I'm an idiot or the equipment they prefer?  Particularly,
> anybody like Bay networks or Extreme, HP, or . . .?  I'm interested in
> managed switches, QOS, and layer 3 switching at points.

I'm not using any of the managed features currently, but have been very 
happy with the BayStack (Bay Networks / Nortel) switches - they've been 
rock solid. They probably don't have all of the features of a nice Cisco 
switch, but they also cost 3 times less.

In the past I've used 3com & HP switches, haven't been impressed with 
either of them. The 3com didn't auto-negotiate speeds with other devices 
(sometimes even 3com NIC's) and the HP used to drop ports & require a 
power cycle to fix about once a week.

-dc