[AusNOG] Tech Q: Looking for Cheapest 10G Switches for Hobby Lan.

[Mark Prior]

Trent Lloyd wrote:
> I've been looking at this for RFLAN in WA
> 
> 
> Juniper seems reasonably good value for having uplinks @ 10GE.. but
> the killer in price is the 10GE aggregation switch, 100 might not be
> so bad but for us I need 300-400 ports so a big 20-40+ port 10GE
> aggregation switch is required and not cheap.  but mind it's not just
> base switch cost, but also transceivers and cables you have to worry
> about.
> 
> 
> Another option we were considering to reduce cost was trunking
> between stacks of 3200/4200s.. we run rows 4 switches long stacked, 6
> rows.. run a daisy chain of trunks @ 10G between each row.
> 
> 
> 
> another another option is to get a bit fat center switch with a big
> backplane and lots of ports, and cable out patch panels rather than
> switches to each person.

Speaking with a Juniper hat on and possibly sailing too close to the 
wind in product promotion :-)

If you use EX4200's you can use the virtual chassis capability to link 
up to 10 of them together using their virtual chassis ports which would 
be higher performance than using a 10GE port (although you could use 
them too). Linking 10 EX4200-48x this way would get you 480 GE ports and 
up to 20 10GE ports. Using the virtual chassis ports the maximum 
distance covered by the switches is 25 metres.

If you needed more than perhaps use an EX4500 as an aggregation switch 
and just plug up to 48 EX3200 or EX4200's into it via 10GE.

Mark.