Would you trust your business's network on Dell switches?

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We have a couple 8 port dell gigabit switches for our DMZ - which houses our webservers. They've been fine for a year+ now.
 
They don't run IOS because they aren't Cisco.
I believe that Trendnet is the ODM for Dell's switches, but Dell of course is running a customized to Dell OS on them. It's probably some custom flavor of *nix.

-Chris
 
We use them for cheap aggregation switches in our network. When we deploy VOIP, we'll swap them out for Cisco's.

They're reliable as long as you dont expect them to do too much. We've been using them as aggregation switches for almost 3 years now.

We dont have any QoS, VLANs, or port security turned on. The only features the switches are running are spanning-tree and LACP. It's been my experience with the Dell switches that when you start enabling more features, you're dramatically increasing your risk of failure.

The CLI is a sorry imitation of IOS, it really sucks. The GUI sucks too. The only plus side to the GUI is that its simple, and it loads extremely quick.

I only speak of the 52xx series. I haven't had experience with any others.
 
it wouldnt hurt to try to get test units and run them through a barrage of tests to see if they fit your needs and expectations.
 
JediFonger said:
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/pro...en&s=bsd&~ck=mn
^like those above? i plan on getting 3 of the 24porter and using gigabit fibre SX in the back to h00k them all up creating a 72port network. thoughts? warnings? etc?
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++ on other comments regarding dell switches.

However, i want to point out one thing in your design. Since you are going to connect each of the stacks using 1 GB fiber, remember that traffic between each of the stacks will limited to 1GB. Traffic within the same stack will be handled by the backplane speed (whatever the backplane speed is).
 
right now, there are 2 servers, both w2k3, dual opteron, sql2k and 20 wxpp clients. that's the current need. simple filesharing, basic sql access. won't break anything. i just need high reliability.
 
On a critical network I would never trust anything outside of Cisco or Juniper. Home network? SOHO? Small LAN? Sure I'd trust SMC (err.. Dell) switches.
 
The only way I'd say go for Dell is if you can buy spares and keep them on the shelf, and you have someone there to swap them in and/or troubleshoot if one goes down.

When we got our Dell switches, we had also purchased a ton of computer from Dell. They basically gave us the switches at something like 1/6 the normal cost. This allowed us to build in a lot of redundancy so that if one of the switches fails, we dont lose anything.

Naturally, you should build in redundancy no matter if you use Dell switches or not. But if you wont have someone proficient there all the time to take care of problems and replace switches, then I wouldn't bother with Dell. Dell's networking support is all but non-existent.
 
JediFonger said:
right now, there are 2 servers, both w2k3, dual opteron, sql2k and 20 wxpp clients. that's the current need. simple filesharing, basic sql access. won't break anything. i just need high reliability.
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Then how come you need 72 ports?
 
yes, we have several Dell switches and rackmount servers. no problems with them for 2 years
 
A Dental client of mine is running 1 powerconnect 5324 and 3 powerconnect 3348 switches to approximately 30 PCs, 2 servers, 2 Wireless APs, several network printers, and one training room outfitted with 40 data jacks.

Not one problem with the setup and plenty of growth to boot.
 
mattjw916 said:
HP Procurve or Cisco Catalyst... the rest is just noise. ;)
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I second that. HP makes the Best switches for the money. Can't go worng. I wouldn't put a dell in anything above 24 ports 10/100. The Hp procruves are just too good for the money.
 
cause that's how many available jacks we have in our offices/buildings. get it all ready now and we may expand 10 clients more down the line, etc. it's all in the plan.

Darthkim said:
Then how come you need 72 ports?
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i keep reading about cisco&hp. sounds like i might just go with them, but they're very expensive. does the fiber connect to them as well? i might buy hp, cisco and dell and fibre them all just to try 'em all.
 
JediFonger said:
cause that's how many available jacks we have in our offices/buildings. get it all ready now and we may expand 10 clients more down the line, etc. it's all in the plan.



i keep reading about cisco&hp. sounds like i might just go with them, but they're very expensive. does the fiber connect to them as well? i might buy hp, cisco and dell and fibre them all just to try 'em all.
Click to expand...


HP's are very cheap for what you get. you can get 24 or 48 port with build in 2 GIGE or Fiber connections.

2650
48 RJ-45 10/100 ports (IEEE 802.3 Type 10Base-T; 802.3u Type 100Base-TX)
2626
24 RJ-45 10/100 ports (IEEE 802.3 Type 10Base-T; 802.3u Type 100Base-TX)

2650/2626
2 dual personality ports—can be used as either 2 RJ-45 10/100/1000 ports (IEEE 802.3 Type 10Base-T; 802.3u Type 100Base-TX; 802.3ab 1000Base-T Gigabit Ethernet), or 2 open mini-GBIC slots (for use with mini-GBIC transceivers), or one of each





physical characteristics

Dimensions: 17.42 x 12.8 x 1.73 in. (44.25 x 32.5 x 4.4 cm)
Weight: 9.87 lb (4.48 kg)


Memory and Processors

Processor: Motorola MPC8245 PowerPC
Flash capacity: 16 MB



Performance

Latency: < 12 µs (LIFO)
Throughput:
2650-10.1 million pps (64-byte packets)
2626-6.6 million pps (64-byte packets)
Switching capacity:
2650-13.6 Gbps
2626-9.6 Gbps
Address table size: 8,000
 
have a whole network (100+ users) running off of powerconnects. If you know Cisco IOS the Dell CLI is very similar. I dont like using the gui at all.

I have various vlans setup, mirroring, acls, etc..

They work fine. I still prefer Cisco, but for price Dells are very good.
 
Just a note to help out the OP...

When you all talk about powerconnects, be specific to what model you're referring to. Not all powerconnects are created equal. Some suck, some are decent.
 
well, i definitely need all the ports to be 1gigabit. @these prices, there's no reason to go backwards to 100mpbs.

i also need fiber and it's all upgradeable just through adding switches and additional sx SFP.
 
I dont think I would say any "suck".

some cisco switches "suck" too.

go to dells site and look around. If you need gig/fiber they have them. I have used all series up to 6k series(layer 3).

the layer 3 functionality is great. Cisco has more bells and whistles. It just depends on what you need.
 
We are in the progress of migrating off our old Alcatel switches and going all Cisco. All the routers between buildings are Cisco already and the two firewalls are new PIXs.

We support multiple buildings in the city with a total of about 200 users so Dell doesn't even come to mind. I wouldn't even put it in my home network, plus it says Dell and i hate that :p
 
enforcer17 said:
We are in the progress of migrating off our old Alcatel switches
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Wow. Sorry to hear you had alcatel. Welcome to the world of cisco! I removed our install of alcatel 2 years ago. And i also just finished moving the last remnants of Alcatel at our manufacturing plant.
 
i've been researching some more. it turns out, conceptually, what i really need is a chassis switch with the back of the switch capable of transmitting the ENTIRE bandwidth of the its 24port switch to another 24port switch so that once everything is connected. it will appear as if i have a 48port switch.

but looking around chassis switches with backpanel fibres are wicked expensive. how in the hell do businesses deal with this?
 
I think most companies that buy chassis-based modular switches are either using a lot more than 72 ports, or are aggregating multiple switches on those ports. As such, they'll likely have larger budgets for the project.
 
JediFonger said:
i've been researching some more. it turns out, conceptually, what i really need is a chassis switch with the back of the switch capable of transmitting the ENTIRE bandwidth of the its 24port switch to another 24port switch so that once everything is connected. it will appear as if i have a 48port switch.

but looking around chassis switches with backpanel fibres are wicked expensive. how in the hell do businesses deal with this?
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I highly doubt you need to have 48 non-blocking GB ports Though it would be nice to have a chassis based switch, i think we are getting out of hand here.

You haven't really told us what your company does. However with 2 servers and 20 clients, I think you'll be more than fine with the dell switches. If you want to step up, go HP. If you want a stackable switch with greater backplane speed, look at the Nortel and the Cisco 3750's ($$$$). Since you only need about 24 ports, even a 48 port switch should be fine.
 
i currently have 2 of these:

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/JGS524.php

hooked up to this:
http://netgear.com/products/details/GS605.php

using regular 5e. but if i wanted to h00k 2 switches together or trunk them i'd need crossover cables. when i tried using regular 5e, computers on either switch wouldn't communicate with one another.

thus, the solution is probably to connect 12 ports both switches and make only 24 ports total available. that'd mean i'd have to get 6 switches and take up 12 ports each so i can get 72 effective ports... hrm... that's how people usually do it?
 
We currently use a few Dell3348's mainly as distribution switches. We do have one attached in the core with a trunk up to our Cisco 375048G-TS. It has a vlan segmented off for DMZ and one for our APC products. The remaining ports (VLAN1) are used as distribution. All VLANS trunk back to the Cisco for intervlan routing/access. We have not had any problems with the switch in its current setup. The "IOS" that it runs is a slightly modified, much less capable version of Cisco's Base IOS. Little nuances like just "conf" vs "conf t" are the major differences command wise. All-in-all a OK switch if, as stated above, you aren't expecting to do QoS or Routing on the switch. We got them cheap from our Dell rep.
 
JediFonger said:
i currently have 2 of these:

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/JGS524.php

hooked up to this:
http://netgear.com/products/details/GS605.php

using regular 5e. but if i wanted to h00k 2 switches together or trunk them i'd need crossover cables. when i tried using regular 5e, computers on either switch wouldn't communicate with one another.

thus, the solution is probably to connect 12 ports both switches and make only 24 ports total available. that'd mean i'd have to get 6 switches and take up 12 ports each so i can get 72 effective ports... hrm... that's how people usually do it?
Click to expand...


If thats your current setup, you will see marginal increases in speed. regardless of which vendor you go with

If anything, the only immediate benefit would be a host going to another host on another switch. But i seriously doubt you are maxing out the 1 GB link.

Remember, if you want to Etherchannel (Cisco), you can go only up to 8 ports.
 
It would still be nice to know what kind of traffic you're pushing across the network.

With only 20 hosts and 2 servers, you'd have to be constantly pushing massive files across the network to require what you are proposing. Unless you are pushing multi-gig files all the time, any saturation of your interconnects is only going to last for a short period of time.

You could get two 48 port Dell switches, and aggregate a couple ports between them. Then setup MRTG to monitor usage of the link, if it has periods of complete saturation then keep adding ports to the link until it doesnt.

However, if you see yourself needing more advanced features down the road I would strongly urge you to save yourself the headache and get Cisco...or HP. There is a very strong possibility of you becoming psychotic if you try to push those Dell's to be anything more than basic managed switches.
 
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