On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Jeff Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> wrote:
On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Eric Germann <egermann@limanews.com> wrote:
I'm looking for a recommendation on a smallish 10G Ethernet switch for a small virtualization/SAN implementation (4-5 hosts, 2 SAN boxes) over iSCSI with some legacy boxes on GigE.
1Gbps. Assessing whether it is better to go 10G now vs. multi-pathing with quad GigE cards. Trying to find the best solution for > 1G on a trunk and < $50K per box.
Certainly the days of doing NxGE to servers should be behind us. There are many good 10GE switch offerings. The Juniper QFX and Arista (insert one of three good product lines here) have been excellent for us. We like them for different reasons -- Arista is quite good if you want to integrate with a provisioning system; QFX is our choice when most provisioning is done manually. Both are way under $50k per box.
The biggest difference between the TOR-style switches and chassis offerings, aside from the obvious, is buffers. All the TOR-type 10G switches have really small buffers and that can be a performance issue for iSCSI when utilization is high. Most of the chassis-type switches have very generous buffers so you do not run into problems with micro-bursting, etc. The vendors will all tell you about lossless ethernet, flow control, etc. and that crap sounds great on paper. Try making it actually work. You'll want those days of your life back. :)
I'm curious if anyone here has experience with the Extreme Summit X650 or X670 switches? I'm also currently looking for 10GBASE-T switch for my first SAN, but one with 48 ports. The price for X670V-48T seems reasonable, but I have no experience with 10 GbE over copper, so it's difficult to figure out what criteria to use (other than price) when comparing Extreme, Arista, Dell, and others. Any tips? - Max