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March 12th, 2014 06:00

What switch do you recommend

Hi

Short description of our environment..

x1 poweredge R720 with x4 nic ports for iSCSI
x2 poweregde R710 with x4 nic ports for iSCSI
x1 poweregde R610 with x2 nic ports for iSCSI

x2 EQL PS6100E
x2 EQL PS4100E
x2 EQL PS6000
x4 EQL PS5000

Everything is divided evenly between two building floors using both SyncRep and regular Replication on the EQL boxes and using one VMware HA cluster and DRS on the hosts.
Physically separated networks for iSCSI and production network.

We are using powerconnect 5448 switches on the iSCSI network. Only one PC5448 for each floor and they are connected together with x4 LACP fiber trunk link.

I know those switches should be replaced but to what? PC6248, PC7048 or Force10? Maybe even another manufacturer? If so which model? The pricetag IS a deciding factor, I don't have the budget for expensive stuff

9.3K Posts

March 12th, 2014 09:00

Check the Equallogic support matrix for an idea for what switches are validated/supported/recommended. It is not limited to just Dell switches (there are some Cisco, Juniper, and Brocade options listed).

First you'll want to upgrade to dual switches on each floor and LACP them together. You could stack them, but this has the major downside that if you ever want/need to upgrade the switch firmware in one or both of the rooms, that you'll need 100% downtime in that room.

In my next part I'll stick to Dell switches as this is a Dell message board.

I'd skip the PC6200-series unless your budget cannot fit a better switch. The 6200 is a decent switch, but it's on its way out (can see this by the fact that Dell hasn't upgraded the firmware on this switch since the 3.3 series (all the 7k and higher switches are now on a 5.x firmware). The Force10 S25 series is a better switch than that PC7024, but if you are considering upgrading to 10Gbit at some point, maybe you can consider a pair of PowerConnect 8132s in each room. The non-F version uses RJ45 ports that can do 1Gbit and 10Gbit, so you can initially just use the current EQL units, but newer units could be 10Gbit units. You'd want to get the optional QSFP+ modules for each switch and 2 cables for each pair so you can use these 2 40Gbit ports to LACP the switches together in each room.

If you want to use an LACP between the 2 rooms made up from both switches, you have a harder choice to make; stack the switches (with the downside I mentioned above), or upgrade to Force10 S4820s as these offer the ability to make a port-channel across 2 non-stacked switches (the PowerConnect firmware doesn't offer this).

Cisco and Brocade offer similar features (to run an LACP across 2 non-stacked switches), but I don't know what exact firmware and/or switches would offer this.

5 Practitioner

 • 

274.2K Posts

March 12th, 2014 09:00

The 6248 aren't available new for sale anymore.    If you are planning to grow your SAN, investing now in a scalable switch might be your best option.  For more towards the Force10.  Also are all these groups on the same switches? 

Some links below with info on tested switches, best practices with ESXi and other configuration related information.

 

EqualLogic

Compellent

EqualLogic Compatibility Matrix

Compellent on Dell TechCenter

EqualLogic Configuration Guide

 

Rapid EqualLogic Configuration Portal

 

EqualLogic Best Practices Whitepapers

 

EqualLogic Best Practices ESX

 

 

Regards,

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