Cisco 3550

V

Vitamin_uk

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 6, 2004
Messages
181
Help needed here guys.

I have 3 Cisco 7940 phones currently connceted to trixbox all working very well. I am going to be adding an extra couple of phones soon and I dont want to mess about with AC adapters.

I am after a Cisco POE switch. Would the 3550 be compatible with these handsets? I cant afford a 3560 btw....

Thanks for the help.:D
 
Yup, we run these exact models on our 3550's at work. Just make sure you get a PWR model, not all are poe.

:cool:
 
I was looking to this exact same thing.

The exact Model you want is WS-C3550-24pwr.

This maybe not where you want to go, but something to maybe take into consideration:

Mid Span POE Hub

Since I got my 2948g-l3 up and going this is the route I will be going now for my 2 7912 and 7960. Also have an access point that it will power too
 
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That doesn't look like a hub to me, it looks like a PoE injector in a 24 port rack-mount configuration. Just because it uses the term "hub" in the name doesn't mean it is a non-switching device.
 
DarkOne_BW said:
That doesn't look like a hub to me, it looks like a PoE injector in a 24 port rack-mount configuration. Just because it uses the term "hub" in the name doesn't mean it is a non-switching device.
Click to expand...

Beat me too it, but right.. Basically one in one out configuration.
 
Cheers for your help guys. Im struggling to find one on fleabay in the UK!

May have to import one from the states! ;)
 
DarkOne_BW said:
That doesn't look like a hub to me, it looks like a PoE injector in a 24 port rack-mount configuration. Just because it uses the term "hub" in the name doesn't mean it is a non-switching device.
Click to expand...

My fault for not reading the description...the only caveat I can offer is that most equipment cannot supply full PoE power to all ports at once. So in turn I would ask how many phones you plan to run off these?
 
Lightworker said:
My fault for not reading the description...the only caveat I can offer is that most equipment cannot supply full PoE power to all ports at once. So in turn I would ask how many phones you plan to run off these?
Click to expand...

he said he has 3 phones and wants to add 2 phones. my guess is 5 =D
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Yea, just be carefull as the PoE that Cisco implemented on the 3550 is a Cisco propriatary pre-standard PoE, not the 802.3af IEEE standard (it wasn't out when the 3550 was released)

It will work with all Cisco devices (IP phones, wireless APs and the like) that support CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol) but any non-Cisco gear is SOL with it.
 
Well if it is just for a small number of phones why not use the Cisco power injectors?
 
If you are buying something new, do not buy a 3550 Powered switch. You should be buying a 3560 powered switch, which supports standard inline power (803.3af). If you are looking at used, than a 3550 is probably going to be a good bit cheaper, just know it will never power a non-Cisco device.

Buying a switch of this level (even used) for 5 phones seems a little silly to me to be honest. You can save a botload with a 2960 PoE model. 2960's don't support L3 routing, which is one of the major differences in the 2960 and a 3560.

PS, 24 port and 48 port PoE 3560 switches are capable of 370W total PoE, which is 15.4W (max) on 24 port switch, or 7.7W on the 48 port switch. 7940's only draw 6.3W.
 
^Agreed on cost. Cisco power adapters for 7940's are about $30 a pop.

A brand new 3560-24PS model is around $2,500
 
Lightworker said:
^Agreed on cost. Cisco power adapters for 7940's are about $30 a pop.

A brand new 3560-24PS model is around $2,500
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Sad but true, we have hundreds of them at the office. It makes the $30 price tag look ludicrous.


I've said this before and i'll say it again. If this is for a business or professional use, I would highly suggest NOT using a 3550-pwr. They are EoL and EoS. If by some miracle you still have smartnet on one, you will play hell getting one from Cisco. Lab or home use, they are fine.

If you need a new switch with PoE, 2960's do the job fine. Also, you could do a 3560-8PC, 8x PoE ports for ~$900. (Or the 3560-12PC for $1500)

The CE-500's are another alternative, however, if you plan on using CLI, forget about it. (I personally wouldn't buy one, but that's just me)

Just to clarify things a bit more. All cisco switches support BOTH pre-standard PoE and 802.3af PoE. As do most, if not all, Cisco edge devices.
 
The rule of the CE-500 is, you never discuss the CE-500 as an option! :D

It makes CatOS feel like bleeding edge.
 
CatOS on my 6513 is so much easier then using IOS on a switch as many ports in it as I have. Wish they kept it running for the big chassis.

And I agree, cisco on Catalyst Express stuff. THere's not a whole lot of savings.

Look at Cisco Certified Refurb stuff (-RF on the end of the part number). BIG savings. FULL coverage available from Cisco. Cisco basically reviews a RF product as equivalent to a new product. I got some prices on 3560's as RF parts and it was 50% savings.
 
Prior to the "int range" command, I'd agree with you.

Strictly for L2 access, CatOS isn't that bad. Hybrid IOS on the other hand, is terrible, but hopefully no one is doing that anymore.

But yeah, I just don't like having both breeds out in prod in significant numbers.
 
I've got 432 ports in my 6513, and everything about the way CatOS handles that many ports is much friendlier than IOS, even with the "int range" command. My switch runs Hybrid, with CatOS on the Supervisors and IOS on the add-on router cards, and I like it that way. But since CatOS is pretty much completely dead now on 6500 series, it's going to have to be changed one of these days. The switch needs a RAM upgrade though before that can be done.
 
HDClown said:
I've got 432 ports in my 6513, and everything about the way CatOS handles that many ports is much friendlier than IOS, even with the "int range" command. My switch runs Hybrid, with CatOS on the Supervisors and IOS on the add-on router cards, and I like it that way. But since CatOS is pretty much completely dead now on 6500 series, it's going to have to be changed one of these days. The switch needs a RAM upgrade though before that can be done.
Click to expand...

Yikes. One of my customers has a 6509 with 336ports and I don't have a problem with IOS and that many ports. Personal preference I suppose.
 
Yea, it's personal preference at the end of the day. But, there used to be things you just couldn't do in IOS on a 6500 series switch, which is why they were still selling CatOS software. Those days are gone now, but this wasn't that long ago. We're talking about mid-to-late 2004 time frame. Something as basic as auto qos funtionality features did not exist in IOS back then for a 6500 series switch.
 
Yeah, IOS/CatOS is a lot like a vi/emacs discussion :D. I'm with Wes -- generally, I build out 240 copper per (access) 6509, and then put as many chassis as I need for that floor. I never had any issues, but I rarely look at the full running config for L2 most of the time. Instead, I manage it by using "sh mod", "sh vlan", "sh int status" "sh int tru", "sh eth su" and "int range" commands.

Once the sup720 came along, Cisco realized that it's time to move away from hybrid. You're actually the first person I've ever seen admit that hybrid was a good way to do things. It always felt like a dirty hack to me until they were able to finally combine it. As you say, to each their own.

I guess most of my frustration comes from a management perspective. It's annoying when you have sup720s that are running native, and some old sup2s w/o MSFC that are running catos where the command set for network scripts has to change for those dramatically. Not to mention when I'm on a catos device type in "sh int..." at least 5000 times by now. :p

Thankfully, NX-OS that runs on the new Nexus platform is very IOS-like in terms of CLI.
[/rant]
 
This 6513 has Sup2's but it also has MSFC2's (and PFC2). So all the routing is IOS and always has been, which keeps it inline with regular routers. Since the site with the 6513 didn't have any other switches (aside from some 3550's in the DMZ), there wasn't any break in the homogenous switching infrastructure. The building was JUST the right size to be able to home run everything to the core, which was kind of nice. I can certainly see it being a "mind f--k" situation if you're in an environment a lot of switches and they aren't all IOS.
 
HDClown said:
Yea, it's personal preference at the end of the day. But, there used to be things you just couldn't do in IOS on a 6500 series switch, which is why they were still selling CatOS software. Those days are gone now, but this wasn't that long ago. We're talking about mid-to-late 2004 time frame. Something as basic as auto qos functionality features did not exist in IOS back then for a 6500 series switch.
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Key word is "used to", but we're talking early 2000's here, not 2004 ;). Show me one command in CatOS and ill show you its counterpart or something similar in IOS.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_1/12_1t/release/notes/rn2600t.html#wp205828 <-- int range command, integrated into IOS in 2001.

also, auto qos was implemented into IOS at the same time it was for CatOS. Just the facts.
al.gif



just2cool said:
Hybrid IOS on the other hand, is terrible, but hopefully no one is doing that anymore.
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Im actually going to disagree with you on this one, while I think its nice to run native IOS some places are limited by budget. I would take hybrid over native CatOS + nffc(or any other L3 engine) any day of the week.

just2cool said:
Once the sup720 came along, Cisco realized that it's time to move away from hybrid. You're actually the first person I've ever seen admit that hybrid was a good way to do things. It always felt like a dirty hack to me until they were able to finally combine it. As you say, to each their own.

Thankfully, NX-OS that runs on the new Nexus platform is very IOS-like in terms of CLI.
[/rant]
Click to expand...
I wouldn't go so far as saying that Cisco has realized its time to move on from running a device in hybrid mode, thats just untrue, but I would say that Cisco would like to sell native licenses :D. Like I said above, the primary reason many people run hyrbid is because its cheaper, as sad but true fact.

Like NX-OS eh? Its more linux CLI-ish but that's the direction that the company is going. Was funny though seeing the SAN stuff in a switch being used for IP :p

Just my .02, I like CatOS and I like Native IOS... I like hybrid, really doesn't bother me to configure/administer one over the other. Would I pick CatOS over native, hell no but I dont think that most people would. As long as my code has all its features and no show stopper bugs I dont care what it runs, I care more about my hardware and if my line cards are distributed or classic.
 
Yeah, I also wasn't considering the cost perspective (god damn, have I really became that spoiled already? :eek:)

Wouldn't say I neccessarily "like" NX-OS yet.. but I was impressed that it was running no problem despite a telnet bug that pegged the CPU to 100% in one of the early releases. Despite that, It was forwarding ~320Gbps of sustained traffic with no problem. Only time I noticed the issue is when I did a "sh sys resour". Pretty badass hardware.. can't wait for the new 10gb line cards with a better fabric connection.
 
xphil3:

I was referring specficially to Auto QoS features in IOS on a Cat6500. It's completely irrelevant when Cisco introduced it into IOS on routers. I was talking about a switch, not a router. The IOS build line and versioning is completely different for switches than it is routers.

Auto QoS was not introduced for 6500's until 12.2(33)SXH in August 2007: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/swi.../12.2SX/release/notes/ol_14271.html#wp3420555

Heck, mls qos trust dscp and mls qos trust ip-precedence wasn't introduced for the current (at the time) 48 port 10/00 powered and non-powered line cards until early 2004. Prior to that, all you had was mls qos trust cos

CatOS had to stick around as long as it did so cisco could build ful feature parity into IOS. Not everyone had the easy to decision to jsut drop CatOS and go to IOS whenever they wanted. Features just didn't exist that people wanted.
 
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HDClown said:
xphil3:

I was referring specficially to Auto QoS features in IOS on a Cat6500. It's completely irrelevant when Cisco introduced it into IOS on routers. I was talking about a switch, not a router. The IOS build line and versioning is completely different for switches than it is routers.
Click to expand...
You edited.... faster than I could post... but I was going to say you were incorrect on all accounts(specifically stating that the 6500 is a switch, not a router). The 6500 is most definitely both a router and a switch, hence all the routing functions. You're slightly correct only becuase the BU's have now split and there is a separate train for the 7600 line of equipment(though its still very possible to run SR code on a supervisor engine). Hardware wise(chassis, SUP vs RSP, cards) they almost identical. I fully understand the differences between the 12.2(xx) major release and 12.4(xx) release, please dude :rolleyes:

HDClown said:
Auto QoS was not introduced for 6500's until 12.2(33)SXH in August 2007: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/swi.../12.2SX/release/notes/ol_14271.html#wp3420555
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My bad, I thought you were making a blanket statement about IOS in general hence my response. Still, Macros get put at the bottom of the priority list when they're integrating and testing IOS features.

HDClown said:
CatOS had to stick around as long as it did so cisco could build ful feature parity into IOS. Not everyone had the easy to decision to just drop CatOS and go to IOS whenever they wanted. Features just didn't exist that people wanted.
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I agree, this was one very small reason... but money was top dog here. Trust me on this one. Obviously CatOS had been around on these devices for years before IOS was introduced(2003 time frame) and the features had already had time to mature. I can say that many of the popular features(obviously) were implemented in the first major release of 12.2SX, and many of the work around "features" that you spoke of could be accomplished some other way(for instance mutation maps for your mls qos trust dscp, no reason to use dscp when its the same exact value)

Now dont get me wrong, nothing is perfect and Ive noticed TONS of problems with 12.2(SR and SX) code as well as little feature that I love that aren't in the code(can anyone say "section", lol). I work with both products religiously on a very large scale, so Ill be the first one to tell you how crappy I think things are but CatOS dosne't hold a candle to IOS for the most part not to mention the slew of cards and services(MPLS, IPv6,etc) that you CANT run with CatOS native.
 
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xphil3 said:
You edited.... faster than I could post... but I was going to say you were incorrect on all accounts(specifically stating that the 6500 is a switch, not a router). The 6500 is most definitely both a router and a switch, hence all the routing functions. You're slightly correct only becuase the BU's have now split and there is a separate train for the 7600 line of equipment(though its still very possible to run SR code on a supervisor engine). Hardware wise(chassis, SUP vs RSP, cards) they almost identical. I fully understand the differences between the 12.2(xx) major release and 12.4(xx) release, please dude :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

My statement was more in regards to what Cisco defines as a "switch" and a "router" in their product line, and the corresponding software that goes with it. Not the capabilities of the device. If you go prior to the Sup720, the MSFC cards where optional, so it really was just a switch unless you built it to have routing capabilities. Of course, those days are gone as the MSFC3 is integrated into the Sup720.

*EDIT* I do see that Cisco does list the 6500 under the router category these days :)
 
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