Aftermarket switches that were manufactured in any sort of quantity?
Hello, We had been purchasing some used 48 port 10000BaseT switches /w 6x QSFP28 ports for around $3000 until about 2021. In 2021 the aftermarket pricing went from $3,000 each to $15,000 each. Now these particular switches are selling for $20,000 each (and people are still buying them[?]...) Obviously I cannot pay $20k for a used switch so I am trying to find alternatives that perhaps aren't as rare. I'm trying to determine whether this pricing is just based on the model I am trying to buy or if it is basically every switch from every MFG. Just trying to see if anyone else has had any luck getting any hardware at around a fair price lately? I'm aware of the macro-economic environment, inflation, chip shortages, etc.. Just looking for another option. Thanks, -Drew
This may sound bad at first but look into FS.com if you're in a pinch. They may not be seen as the typical true enterprise grade (I don't know?) but you can probably buy a a new one and a new spare for the price of one overpriced used switch. From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+rafael.possamai=bluebirdnetwork.com@nanog.org> On Behalf Of Drew Weaver Sent: Thursday, June 9, 2022 11:42 AM To: 'nanog@nanog.org' <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Aftermarket switches that were manufactured in any sort of quantity? Hello, We had been purchasing some used 48 port 10000BaseT switches /w 6x QSFP28 ports for around $3000 until about 2021. In 2021 the aftermarket pricing went from $3,000 each to $15,000 each. Now these particular switches are selling for $20,000 each (and people are still buying them[?]...) Obviously I cannot pay $20k for a used switch so I am trying to find alternatives that perhaps aren't as rare. I'm trying to determine whether this pricing is just based on the model I am trying to buy or if it is basically every switch from every MFG. Just trying to see if anyone else has had any luck getting any hardware at around a fair price lately? I'm aware of the macro-economic environment, inflation, chip shortages, etc.. Just looking for another option. Thanks, -Drew
To paraphrase someone else, I would highly recommend that all my competition use Fiberstore switches. This is based on direct experience with them. On Thu, 9 Jun 2022 at 10:03, Rafael Possamai < rafael.possamai@bluebirdnetwork.com> wrote:
This may sound bad at first but look into FS.com if you’re in a pinch. They may not be seen as the typical true enterprise grade (I don’t know?) but you can probably buy a a new one and a new spare for the price of one overpriced used switch.
*From:* NANOG <nanog-bounces+rafael.possamai=bluebirdnetwork.com@nanog.org> *On Behalf Of *Drew Weaver *Sent:* Thursday, June 9, 2022 11:42 AM *To:* 'nanog@nanog.org' <nanog@nanog.org> *Subject:* Aftermarket switches that were manufactured in any sort of quantity?
Hello,
We had been purchasing some used 48 port 10000BaseT switches /w 6x QSFP28 ports for around $3000 until about 2021.
In 2021 the aftermarket pricing went from $3,000 each to $15,000 each.
Now these particular switches are selling for $20,000 each (and people are still buying them[?]…)
Obviously I cannot pay $20k for a used switch so I am trying to find alternatives that perhaps aren’t as rare.
I’m trying to determine whether this pricing is just based on the model I am trying to buy or if it is basically every switch from every MFG.
Just trying to see if anyone else has had any luck getting any hardware at around a fair price lately?
I’m aware of the macro-economic environment, inflation, chip shortages, etc.. Just looking for another option.
Thanks,
-Drew
On Thu, 9 Jun 2022 at 21:21, Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke@gmail.com> wrote:
To paraphrase someone else, I would highly recommend that all my competition use Fiberstore switches. This is based on direct experience with them.
Of course you're not telling anything at all here. I know plenty of very happy fs customers, and plenty of disappointed. And you can replace fs with anything at all, and it remains true. Nothing of value was said. Very few have statistically useful experience to share just about anything, just anecdotes, and every single company regularly has poor customer interactions. We regularly extrapolate a lot of information from a single anecdote. This is like old men discussing in petrol station which car brands are great and which suck, which is always near 0 signal information, if you start to apply any type of formality to it, like start looking at MOT statistics, you will find, yeah maybe there are some signals, maybe Toyota is good, but at the same time you will notice, well I can pick really bad Toyota, if I pick specific model + model year (next or previous model year of same model might be again great). I have more respect for your competitors' ability to procure than this. -- ++ytti
With all due respect, without sharing NDA protected information about the specific quantity and model numbers of FS switches I have personal experience with in a certain network, there are very valid reasons to have significant concerns about the stability and feature set of the operating system that ships on them. There is a *reason* they are abnormally cheap, in exactly the same way that FS transceivers which are literally the cheapest 1Gbps and 10Gbps OOK optics you can "Add to cart" and buy online are the cheapest transceivers you can buy on the market. But by all means please go ahead and use FS switches for all the layer 2 aggregation needs in your network if you think that they meet your needs. I'm not stopping you. If an ISP has a serious enough need for a large quantity of whitebox switches based on known switch-chip vendors' ASICs I would encourage them to send staff with experience in the electronics manufacturing industry to every year's Computex Taipei and speak with the manufacturers in person. On Thu, 9 Jun 2022 at 11:39, Saku Ytti <saku@ytti.fi> wrote:
On Thu, 9 Jun 2022 at 21:21, Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke@gmail.com> wrote:
To paraphrase someone else, I would highly recommend that all my competition use Fiberstore switches. This is based on direct experience with them.
Of course you're not telling anything at all here. I know plenty of very happy fs customers, and plenty of disappointed. And you can replace fs with anything at all, and it remains true. Nothing of value was said.
Very few have statistically useful experience to share just about anything, just anecdotes, and every single company regularly has poor customer interactions. We regularly extrapolate a lot of information from a single anecdote. This is like old men discussing in petrol station which car brands are great and which suck, which is always near 0 signal information, if you start to apply any type of formality to it, like start looking at MOT statistics, you will find, yeah maybe there are some signals, maybe Toyota is good, but at the same time you will notice, well I can pick really bad Toyota, if I pick specific model + model year (next or previous model year of same model might be again great).
I have more respect for your competitors' ability to procure than this.
-- ++ytti
On Thu, 9 Jun 2022 at 21:59, Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke@gmail.com> wrote:
With all due respect, without sharing NDA protected information about the specific quantity and model numbers of FS switches I have personal experience with in a certain network, there are very valid reasons to have significant concerns about the stability and feature set of the operating system that ships on them.
Perhaps if you cannot offer context, then the message of 'fs is bad' is best shared elsewhere.
There is a reason they are abnormally cheap, in exactly the same way that FS transceivers which are literally the cheapest 1Gbps and 10Gbps OOK optics you can "Add to cart" and buy online are the cheapest transceivers you can buy on the market.
They're not really particularly cheap, they are 'market rate', you can get 'market rate' from multiple suppliers, directly from manufacturers too. They are only cheaper than most EU+US resellers, that's about it. -- ++ytti
Let us change the focus here to offering some alternatives that people DO recommend for best value for the dollar, used OR new. Beckman, Amateur Internet Referee :-) On Thu, 9 Jun 2022, Saku Ytti wrote:
On Thu, 9 Jun 2022 at 21:59, Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke@gmail.com> wrote:
With all due respect, without sharing NDA protected information about the specific quantity and model numbers of FS switches I have personal experience with in a certain network, there are very valid reasons to have significant concerns about the stability and feature set of the operating system that ships on them.
Perhaps if you cannot offer context, then the message of 'fs is bad' is best shared elsewhere.
There is a reason they are abnormally cheap, in exactly the same way that FS transceivers which are literally the cheapest 1Gbps and 10Gbps OOK optics you can "Add to cart" and buy online are the cheapest transceivers you can buy on the market.
They're not really particularly cheap, they are 'market rate', you can get 'market rate' from multiple suppliers, directly from manufacturers too. They are only cheaper than most EU+US resellers, that's about it.
-- ++ytti
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman@angryox.com https://www.angryox.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, 09 Jun 2022 12:51:57 -0700, Peter Beckman wrote:
Let us change the focus here to offering some alternatives that people DO recommend for best value for the dollar, used OR new.
quite happy with a few well-used cisco Nexus 3064s we got. one drawback is one can not set mtu per port, only per chassis. randy
I am mostly searching for switches that can have custom firmware on them. The very long list of those compatible with SONIC is here: https://github.com/Azure/sonic-buildimage/tree/master/device
This is the way. On Thu, Jun 9, 2022 at 2:38 PM Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com> wrote:
I am mostly searching for switches that can have custom firmware on them. The very long list of those compatible with SONIC is here:
https://github.com/Azure/sonic-buildimage/tree/master/device
On 6/9/22 15:07, Saku Ytti wrote:
They're not really particularly cheap, they are 'market rate', you can get 'market rate' from multiple suppliers, directly from manufacturers too. They are only cheaper than most EU+US resellers, that's about it.
Are they "cheap" or is everyone else just "overpriced". ? Thats the real question. Of course it all comes down what you're willing to pay for it. -- inoc.net!rblayzor XMPP: rblayzor.AT.inoc.net PGP: https://pgp.inoc.net/rblayzor/
Depending on what you need, I will point out that Hula has pretty good pricing on Juniper EX4200-48P switches at this time. Last I looked, they were going for $250/ea. Owen
On Jun 10, 2022, at 08:13 , Robert Blayzor via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
On 6/9/22 15:07, Saku Ytti wrote:
They're not really particularly cheap, they are 'market rate', you can get 'market rate' from multiple suppliers, directly from manufacturers too. They are only cheaper than most EU+US resellers, that's about it.
Are they "cheap" or is everyone else just "overpriced". ? Thats the real question. Of course it all comes down what you're willing to pay for it.
-- inoc.net!rblayzor XMPP: rblayzor.AT.inoc.net PGP: https://pgp.inoc.net/rblayzor/
On 6/10/22 17:13, Robert Blayzor via NANOG wrote:
Are they "cheap" or is everyone else just "overpriced". ? Thats the real question. Of course it all comes down what you're willing to pay for it.
And almost always, you get what you pay for... or as the case may be, what you don't pay for. Mark.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 9, 2022, at 09:44, Drew Weaver <drew.weaver@thenap.com> wrote:
Hello,
We had been purchasing some used 48 port 10000BaseT switches /w 6x QSFP28 ports for around $3000 until about 2021.
You didn’t specify the chipset or feature / character of these devices, but I would assume based on the time frame that these are dune arad or Broadcom tomahawk. These are both obsolete and still in fairly high demand and the follow on chipsets eg tomahawk 2 trident 3 jericho and so on are both more feature rich and more modern and are therefore in high demand. Since people are not swapping out equipment they cannot replace, the secondary market is not getting the last generation hardware. If you buy new high end 100 and 400 gig tor switch chipsets in meaningful quantities you’ll be seeing lead times of like a year. The used car market is experiencing a similar condition.
In 2021 the aftermarket pricing went from $3,000 each to $15,000 each.
Now these particular switches are selling for $20,000 each (and people are still buying them[?]…)
Obviously I cannot pay $20k for a used switch so I am trying to find alternatives that perhaps aren’t as rare.
I’m trying to determine whether this pricing is just based on the model I am trying to buy or if it is basically every switch from every MFG.
Just trying to see if anyone else has had any luck getting any hardware at around a fair price lately?
Fair is subject to personal preference and local conditions. The people who would like new switches cannot in some case buy them at any price.
I’m aware of the macro-economic environment, inflation, chip shortages, etc.. Just looking for another option.
Thanks, -Drew
On 6/9/22 18:41, Drew Weaver wrote:
Hello,
We had been purchasing some used 48 port 10000BaseT switches /w 6x QSFP28 ports for around $3000 until about 2021.
In 2021 the aftermarket pricing went from $3,000 each to $15,000 each.
Now these particular switches are selling for $20,000 each (and people are still buying them[?]…)
Obviously I cannot pay $20k for a used switch so I am trying to find alternatives that perhaps aren’t as rare.
I’m trying to determine whether this pricing is just based on the model I am trying to buy or if it is basically every switch from every MFG.
Just trying to see if anyone else has had any luck getting any hardware at around a fair price lately?
I’m aware of the macro-economic environment, inflation, chip shortages, etc.. Just looking for another option.
We are seeing this issue cropping up across the board, both by vendors increasing mark-ups due to the chip shortages, as well as the open market sellers increasing their own prices on pre-owned hardware due to demand. My advice - take the box while you can, because the next time you ask, it will be triple the price. The biggest benefit from buying on the open market, right now, is significantly reduced lead times, if that is something that is important to you and your business. Mark.
participants (12)
-
Dave Taht -
Drew Weaver -
Eric Kuhnke -
Garrett Skjelstad -
Joelja Bogus -
Mark Tinka -
Owen DeLong -
Peter Beckman -
Rafael Possamai -
Randy Bush -
Robert Blayzor -
Saku Ytti