Network Gear Preferences

[TheTrewthHurts]

Hey guys and gals! I have noticed that Linus seems to be using mainly, if not exclusively, Netgear products for his networking needs. I was wondering if anyone has insight or opinions on the following questions. Feel free to cover any other details as I feel this question could spur into a very nice debate/information post.

Why do you think Linus uses Netgear products instead of Cisco? 

Is there any legitimate arguments for or against either company?

 

What are your preferences?

 

What other company's products are you using and do you find any one company to have superior networking equipment?

[tt2468]

1, 2. Netgear offers inexpensive, 10gb stuff

3. I prefer whatever gets the best ratings on amazon

4. TP-Link, Netgear, Ubiquity, Cisco, Intel

[RussR]

He mentioned in one of his videos where they replaced the core Cisco router with Netgear due to not having anyone who knows a lot about Cisco IOS, and not wanting to learn.

 

Cisco Meraki is a good (but not cheap) alternative to learning IOS, and is a 'single pane of glass' admin for everything, but really commercial grade hardware

 

I found earlier TP-Link routers were cheap due to the chipset they used, and some of them had gigabit ports included, but the chipset wasn't powerful enough to handle gigabit throughput. I use an old Netgear with DD-WRT on it at home

[leadeater]

Hey guys and gals! I have noticed that Linus seems to be using mainly, if not exclusively, Netgear products for his networking needs. I was wondering if anyone has insight or opinions on the following questions. Feel free to cover any other details as I feel this question could spur into a very nice debate/information post.

Why do you think Linus uses Netgear products instead of Cisco? 

Is there any legitimate arguments for or against either company?

 

What are your preferences?

 

What other company's products are you using and do you find any one company to have superior networking equipment?

 

For the network configuration and requirements of LMG Netgear offers everything they need for the price and reliability they require. Personally I would never use Netgear equipment but that is nothing other than personal bias.

 

Cisco, Juniper, Brocade, HP, Allied Telesis and Dell are all in the same competing market tier. They all have similar range of products and management tools. These require specialist training and knowledge to configure and operate properly and target customers are large corporate networks and data centers with a few good offerings for smaller networks.

 

Companies that sit around these bigger names can often be hard to classify and rank because they target very specific areas or customers and choose products very carefully. These would include Extreme Networks, Mellanox, Ubiquity etc. These are in no way 'lesser' than the above list brands, they may also have their primary business in other networking areas that are not Ethernet.

 

Below these bigger names sits companies like D-Link, Netgear, Level One and TP-Link. These are generally cheaper products with less features and management tools and have simpler configuration interfaces. Small businesses like this kind of equipment as hiring staff with the required networking skills for Cisco etc is too costly or just not required for the network size.

 

I have not list every brand because there is simply too many. Ones I did not list have primary business in Wireless, Telephony, Security etc. I made an exception for Ubiquity since their stuff is very competitively priced and can be used outside of wireless deployments.

[brwainer]

The company I work for has given me a wide range of experience with lots of hardware, mostly switches but some routers and APs. So this what I personally have come up with, as well as what the company's preferences are:

Switches: the company prefers HP switches because the CLI is easier to understand than Cisco and Dell (Dell CLI almost seems copied directly from Cisco), but if a new customer has existing hardware and isnmt interested in upgrading we will support it. Cisco and dell are fine. Netgear and Dlink can be annoying because their standard CLI is limited and their psuedo GUI is hard to navigate. Our sole remote access is through SSHing into a server at the gateway and using SSH, Telnet, or Elinks (text only browser) to access the network. For POE switches we will only accept Cisco and HP. Personally I like Dlink smart switches for low budget, Mikrotik when you need some occasional Layer3 functions, and HP when you can afford it.

Routers: the company and I personally prefer Mikrotik. We have never had a performance or stability issue, assuming the right router is purchased (they have some products like the CRS line that can be routers, but can't route at full speed as they are meant to be switches and have weak CPUs) Cisco is good but expensive, and IOS is harder to work with on routers than on switches. We don't support any other routers.

APs: anything new we are using Ruckus APs. The other big names are just as nice, but with APs you really want to standardize more than anything else because wireless has so many more quirks than the wired network. For existing hardware we've worked with Ubiquity, "HD Inwalls" and other prosumer / small business brands. They're ok. In all cases, we try to avoid using central controllers whenever possible, even the ones from Ruckus. We had a new customer over the summer that insisted on using Cisco Meraki APs. Literally a week after we took over, Apple released an OSX update that changed how wireless worked. You have to understand that with wireless, the client always chooses what to connect to. If a smart group of APs, either with a controller or some like Unifis that make a virtual controller, decides that a client would be better served by AP #5 than #4, all the APs other than #5 have to disconnect and refuse to (re) connect the client, so that the client eventually tries AP #5. Well this new OSX update made it so it wouldn't try any APs other than the one *it* decided was best and wanted to connect to. All of a sudden this fancy expensive "best thing you can buy" system was disconnecting OSX computers and not letting them connect at all. Is that Apple's fault? Cisco's? They both kept pointing the finger at each other, and for almost two months Apple laptops on the latest update couldn't connect. We've had similar issues with other controllers. So 15,000 APs across 38 states all have unique SSIDs, and we avoid controllers. The users are generally happy, and it makes troubleshooting a bad AP easier too. Personally I use Mikrotik routers that have wireless adaptors, or a good router with DD-WRT.

[KuJoe]

I used to prefer Mikrotik networking equipment at home and Vyatta for data centers but now I've been moving to Ubiquiti for both home and data centers. Mikrotik is awesome, but Ubiquiti routers are roughly the same price and the OS is awesome (and since I use Ubiquiti UniFi APs at home I don't need a router with wireless built-in any more).

 

Also, at home I use TP-Link switches because they are really cheap and low powered gigabit switches (most of my 24 ports on my router go unused because I have a 5 or 8 port switch in each room). In data centers I use Ubiquiti EdgeSwitche Lites because I don't need 10Gbps or PoE and power is pricey in data centers.

[Blake]

Hey guys and gals! I have noticed that Linus seems to be using mainly, if not exclusively, Netgear products for his networking needs. I was wondering if anyone has insight or opinions on the following questions. Feel free to cover any other details as I feel this question could spur into a very nice debate/information post.

Why do you think Linus uses Netgear products instead of Cisco? 

Is there any legitimate arguments for or against either company?

 

What are your preferences?

 

What other company's products are you using and do you find any one company to have superior networking equipment?

Basically, most people go for cisco/ubnt/hp/dell/juniper because they have proven to be reliable and offer really good support. Do you want to risk you job by deploying cheap HW? then having to spend lots of time configuring and troubleshooting the device? No? just spend the extra, back-up the config files, and if it breaks you replacement is there in 4 hours. you plug it in upload the config and you done. Typically the TP-Link stuff isn't as reliable, doesn't feature the really good features such as BGP or proper routing, and doesn't have the throughput that the big boys do.

 

Perfect example of this is LACP, HP switches hear at work, no issues with setting up Teaming, configuring trunks or SIPs, edit the running and boot config and it's done, works 100% unless there is a HW issue. Then you look at linus' videos. and read others on forums who have purchased a cheap alternative, and complain it's not working, or only working sometimes, even though it's correctly configured.

 

The CLI isn't that hard to get it you are a computer guy, and know what a subnet mask is or a DNS, and it is much more powerful.

 

I know that when I ask Linus a few months back, he did say he knew pfsense and that is what he was going to use for his core switch, which is fine, but if your pfsense box goes down you can't call someone and have it replaced within a strict SLA. You can with enterprise gear. and if it's mission critical you'd have hot spares anyway.

[Blake]

I used to prefer Mikrotik networking equipment at home and Vyatta for data centers but now I've been moving to Ubiquiti for both home and data centers. Mikrotik is awesome, but Ubiquiti routers are roughly the same price and the OS is awesome (and since I use Ubiquiti UniFi APs at home I don't need a router with wireless built-in any more).

 

Also, at home I use TP-Link switches because they are really cheap and low powered gigabit switches (most of my 24 ports on my router go unused because I have a 5 or 8 port switch in each room). In data centers I use Ubiquiti EdgeSwitche Lites because I don't need 10Gbps or PoE and power is pricey in data centers.

Keep in mind you get what you pay for with ubnt, definable better then all the TP-link/netgear crap out there, still enterprise grade, but compare the specs, of say a EdgeSwitch (non-pro) to a similar priced HP Procurve, you'll notice about half the throughput.

[leadeater]

-snip-

 

To be fair to enterprise wireless controllers Ruckus and Meraki are very limited to the likes of Aruba and true Cisco. But I do completely agree with Mac OS X being the worst to deal with and completely ignores any industry standards and just make up their own rules.

 

After tweaking the AP profiles and radio settings on the Aruba controller etc, tons of tweaking, I've had Macs working flawlessly supporting all the nice features like client Band Steering and Client Match even with the latest updates. There are many other features too you gain with controllers but if all that is required is just decent wireless with no extra requirements then yea can't argue with stand alone APs etc.

 

The extra cost of both Aruba products and in general controllers and licenses make stand alone very compelling if you are prepared to manage them like this. End of the day if its working and users are happy then your job is done

 

Also just one more "damn you Macs!" just for good measure.

[KuJoe]

Keep in mind you get what you pay for with ubnt, definable better then all the TP-link/netgear crap out there, still enterprise grade, but compare the specs, of say a EdgeSwitch (non-pro) to a similar priced HP Procurve, you'll notice about half the throughput.

 

Considering I only have 1Gbps uplinks to my data centers, I'm fine with a 26Gbps throughput on a 24 port switch.

 

Total Non-Blocking Throughput: 26 Gbps

Switching Capacity: 52 Gbps

Forwarding Rate: 38.69 Mpps

Max. AC Power Consumption 25W

 

 

Took these specs from their datasheet, hard to beat that performance with that power usage for ~$200 no matter where you look.

 

I have a switch next to me I'd love to run through the ropes if anybody had a good idea on how to test it besides just running a bunch of iperf tests across different ports.