- Must have enough ports for the Dell C6100. A fully populated C6100 will need a total of twelve ports: four nodes each with three NICs (two for OS, one for BMC).
- Gigabit. Require for things like vMotion.
- IEEE 802.1q VLAN tagging.
- Remotely manageable.
- Some sort of layer 3 routing would be good.
I settled on the Cisco SG300-20 (SRW2016-K9-NA) as it has a total of twenty ports: 16 for LAN, plus four for connecting to other switches. The C6100 occupies twelve ports and two more are occupied for connectivity to my PC and DSL router/modem/switch thingy. This model includes a layer 3 mode for static routes. It would have been nice to have the model with RIP I/II but this more than doubled the price. Besides, my plan is to use virtual routing either in the form of a standard OS with routing added, or GNS3, or Cisco IOS XRv Software.
One thing I was a bit fuzzy on were the MGBT1 SFP ports: were they standard RJ45 copper or not. They look like a standard RJ45 ports. Experimentation with these will have to wait for another time.
In contrast to the Dell C6100 this switch is fanless and therefore quiet. The web GUI is quite handy as its been 10 years since taking CCNA and I really haven't done anything with Cisco since. My immediate focus is on vSphere and vCloud, the networking will have to wait until later.
No comments:
Post a Comment