Nortel 5510-48T Switch?

[JCH]

Hello,

 

I'm currently in the process of moving my servers into a quarter cab colocation, which requires me to bring in my own switch.

 

Here's the switch that I'm getting:

 

Nortel 5510-48T Switch

 

I saw a few people recommend this, could anyone answer my questions that I have for this switch?

 

1. Would I be able to just plug in from the server into the switch with cat6 and it'll work, or am I required to do any additional setup?

2. Is this a good switch?

 

Please let me know, thanks!

[brwainer]

Do you truly need a switch, or a router? How many public IPs will the colo give you? If the answer is only one or a small number,  then you need a router of some sort. Even if they give you many public IPs, you want something that you can VPN into for private access to the management interfaces of any devices - things like IPMI, any type of remote desktop, and control over switches and routers should never be done over public IPs if it can be avoided. 

 

Even if you can get away with a switch instead of a router, I'd still recommend a router anyway for flexibility. I personally and through work only use Mikrotik routers, some of which actually combine the abilities of a switch (wire speed transfers between ports that you specify, because traffic goes through a switch chip and not the CPU) with a full router. The CRS line has all ports on a single switch chip, and the CPU can handle routing up to about 200Mbps (less when using a VPN). The RB2011 and RB3011 have ports divided into two switch chips, 1-5 and 6-10, with the SFPs being directly connected to the CPU, and can route up to ~500Mbps. The CCR line are full routers, no switching, and you are unlikely to hit a CPU bottleneck on routing speed. Switch-type functions on a CCR (or between the switch groups or SFPs of an RB model) can be done through the CPU by making a bridge. I use a CRS125-24G as my central router and switch in a more-complicated-than-it-needs-to-be home network. At work we use CRS models when we just need to be able to do VPN and lower speed NAT and care about the price to port count, and a CCR for all cases where speed is of importance, i.e. Our main routers that do BGP and handle up to multiple gigabits of traffic.

 

For a quarter cabinet with presumably less than 200Mbps internet connection, I stongly recommend a CRS router/switch. You will have unlimited flexibility to use it as a managed switch that also has the full capabilities of a router.

 

EDIT: to directly answer you question, if all you truly need is a switch, then that Nortel will be fine. I'd like to point out though that a 48 port switch is massively overkill for a quarter cabinet, so unless you plan on using it in another situation in the future where you need more than 24 ports, I wouldn't recommend getting it. Aside from costing more than a 24 port switch, it also uses significantly more power.

[tt2468]

4 hours ago, JCH said:

Hello,

 

I'm currently in the process of moving my servers into a quarter cab colocation, which requires me to bring in my own switch.

 

Here's the switch that I'm getting:

 

Nortel 5510-48T Switch

 

I saw a few people recommend this, could anyone answer my questions that I have for this switch?

 

1. Would I be able to just plug in from the server into the switch with cat6 and it'll work, or am I required to do any additional setup?

2. Is this a good switch?

 

Please let me know, thanks!

That switch is OK, but theres better ones like the quanta lb4m. I would say if you are having to ask the forum about the plug and play ability of ethernet, you should maybe not be getting into the world of datacenters quite yet. When I first went into hosting, i considered myself at least a intermediate. It was a big mistake. I should have created my backbone locally, before I started paying for colo.

[BabyPandaaa]

Do you actually need a layer 3 switch for this?

 

If you're talking about just plugging everything into it, I'd go with a layer 2/2.5 switch, e.g.:

• HP ProCurve 2530 48G
• HP ProCurve 2920 48G

What are your servers going to be doing? 

Do the DC just provide a piped internet connection to your switch or do they supply a router for you?