Extreme Networks' Summit48si
 

Any one using the Extreme Networks' Summit48si. I am looking at those and the Cisco 3550. Just wondering your experiences.

Hi SiteSouth,

Can you tell me the purpose of the switches need. It all depends on when you need. If you tell me what exactly you like to do then we can recommend which is good for your needs.

Any expert here, can you answer for him?.

Thanks
David.K

Hi,

are you going to use it for L2 or L3 switching?
That is an very important detail in considering what kind/brand of switch to choose.
What kind of interfaces you will need? ATM, fiber ?

If I was you, I would choose Extreme. The price per port/Mpps is much lower than Cisco and they are on the market for years. In my past work I had a BlackDiamond Extreme core switch running without any problem.
One of the "problems" Summit have is that there is full-duplex control only on the Gbit interfaces. but this is not an issue at all.
They are really very stable.
Even if you have no clue with Extreme management/config interface, if you have general experience with switches and/or Cisco CLI you will migrate very easily. The CLI is very close and intuitive, much a cisco-like style.

I'll probably use it for L2 but it would be nice to know it can handle the all the L3 stuff should our situation change. I really hate buying gear two times to do the same basic job.

Ideally these would replace all of our 2924s and act as the primary switches for our colo clients. Thus the need for rate limiting and VLANs.

I am using Extreme Summit 48i and 48si. Have used Extreme Summit 48 in the past. Very good routing switch. The 48i and 48si has ACL support, very handy when to filter packets (when you got DOSed, for example). They can also support OSPF, BGP, etc. But for advanced routing, I would recommend you buying a router.

Hello,
The Cisco 3550-48-SMI/EMI is a good switch. However, if your going to go with one then get the EMI. You could always pickup the SMI alot cheaper then the EMI and then just pay for the software upgrade.

Never had any experiences with the 48i but, I can tell you in our network we're currently using the Cisco 3550-48-EMI and can get a really good pricing on both the SMI/EMI.

If your looking for a router then I would recommend going with a Juniper M5, M10, M20, as it really depends on your traffic needs.

For router, instead of M5, I would recommend M7i. It's Juniper new line of product (together with M10i) and it's really affordable. A base M7i comes with either 2FE or 1GE. I would say a new M7i (with 2FE) is cheaper than used M5 with 2FE PIC. Not to mentione, when you buy used Juniper, it will take thousands of dollars to have the router recertified.

Hello,
I do recommend the M7i over the M5 as we will be using the M7i in our network. However, you can get a Juniper M5 with 4 GigE for a decent price from what I have seen.

Hi,

Does Juniper Routers mainly used for disctribution level?. I mean is it directly connected to backbone?.

Thanks
David.K

You may, but you have not factored in the cost to have your Juniper re-certified and your Jun-OS relicense. And for this, it might be better to go new, especially if the router is going to be your main border/edge router.