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Affordable gigabit POE switch?
Can anyone recommend an affordable gigabit 24 or 48 port POE switch? We currently have an SGE2000P. We are looking at going Brocade for our switches now, but their 48 port POE switch costs close to $6000 with a 3 year support contract, vs $1800 with 1 yr contract on the SGE. We are probably looking at the 48 port models, but features and reliability should be same as 24 port one. Of course the Cisco regular POE switches are even more expensive. Basically we just want the phones on a different subnet than the workstations that are daisy chained to them. We want, if possible to stack them for easier management. They will be connected to Layer 3 Switches, so no real routing needed.
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The midspan has RJ45 ports at the front and back of the switch. All you do is connect the back ports via short cables to the ports on your existing switch(s).
It basically just sits inline and adds the POE facility to your existing switches. So as far as wiring the phones is concerned its exactly the same as if you got a dedicated POE switch.
It basically just sits inline and adds the POE facility to your existing switches. So as far as wiring the phones is concerned its exactly the same as if you got a dedicated POE switch.
ASKER
Thanks. And the fact that we daisy chain the workstations won't matter? I'd need to see the cost of the 24 or 48 port switches plus see if it's gigabit speed.
No that doesnt matter at all. All VLAN configuration works fine and you just configure the switch sitting behind the midspan as you normally would.
ASKER
how do I determine if I need 200W or 400W?
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Thanks. For the $200 more, I'd just buy the biggest one they have. We have all sorts of phones.
So here's my conundrum: I can buy 2, 48 port, Brocade stackable switches for roughly $6K. Non-POE. I can then add in the gigabit, 24 port switch from Microsemi for $777 each. I'd buy 3. 2 for use, one for redundancy. Add that up and it's close to $8300.
Or I can buy 2 48 port POE switches, non-stackable for $12K from Brocade
Or I can just buy 3 of the SGE2000P Cisco POE switches for $900 each. This is a far less expensive way and less hardware than the options above. I'm trying to convince myself why it's worth it. Obviously the Brocade switches are more enterprise class and have better support, but is that worth $5K? What else am I getting from these?
So here's my conundrum: I can buy 2, 48 port, Brocade stackable switches for roughly $6K. Non-POE. I can then add in the gigabit, 24 port switch from Microsemi for $777 each. I'd buy 3. 2 for use, one for redundancy. Add that up and it's close to $8300.
Or I can buy 2 48 port POE switches, non-stackable for $12K from Brocade
Or I can just buy 3 of the SGE2000P Cisco POE switches for $900 each. This is a far less expensive way and less hardware than the options above. I'm trying to convince myself why it's worth it. Obviously the Brocade switches are more enterprise class and have better support, but is that worth $5K? What else am I getting from these?
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We use Brocade everywhere else. Problem is they're 3 times the cost and I just don't see the benefit. I think we're going to stick with the SGE2000P switches for now. We're not doing anything Layer3.
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Sticking with Cisco/Linksys for this deployment. No real benefit to us at this stage in the game to go with Brocade for 3x the cost. Thanks for the help though.
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