40GbE switch temptation

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whitey

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When these hit sub-$400 I dunno if I am gonna be able to resist...hopefully something else more friendly environmental-wise comes out so I never have to run one of these jet engines. When do we foresee palatable 40G ethernet switches for us nuts that are not 'quite' nutty enough to run a gnodal at home?

Gnodal GS0018 GX-10301-XX Layer 2+Low Latency Ethernet Switch 18x40GbE QSFP Port | eBay

If my math is correct that's 'close' to $40 per 40G port/throughput. Remember the days of us spec'ing out 10G ports on the switch side at $150-200 per port and thinking that was HOT sh|t? :-D heh
 

pyro_

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Personally i have been keeping my eyes on the Juniper EX4300, better fit for me at home with 1, 10 and 40gb ports all in one switch
 

whitey

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Ohh you knows I luvs me some Junos :-D Yeah I saw those as well but what were they 4 40G ports, good as my 4 10G ex3300 ports I suppose on the uptick/upgrade path...I wish a mini gnodal in the formfactor of my MLX IS5022 IB switch (same pwr envelop as well) would SURE be nice! I know I keep reading @Patrick saying that 40G burns/requires less pwr than even 10G in some cases...dunno if that was adapter/switch side though OTTOMH. I'm sure that 40G will get there, I'm just being greedy now that I have 40G eth cards on hand. No need for it really other than 'cool factor' ATM, need to up my stg game to even 'justify'...(yeah that's it) hah 40G eth currently as my 10G net/stg fabric still has enough juice under the hood for what I am running.
 
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Patrick

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They are very inexpensive, especially if you just need a L2 switch. Heck, I have my 8 port 40GbE + 40 port SFP+ Gnodal for $600 in the FS forums which is $75/ port for the 8x 40GbE ports excluding the 10GbE ports.

And on power I was measuring the card side.
 

whitey

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Yeah these things are monsters though, you'll have to meet 'the home boss' next time your out skiing this season, she's very understanding/supportive/tolerant to a point...until I show up w/ a mini-jet engine roaring from the basement. HAHA

I'll patiently await new gen smaller env friendly/WAF accepted, something along the lines of a 8-12 port 40G w/ a 40-60W profile that doesn't sound like the start of the Indy 500...24/7 :-D

Just food for thought/discussion. Sure they will be kinda niche for us 'on the bleeding edge' folks w/ home labs in mind...for you DC/co-lo folks who gives a darn right :-D MAXIMUM POWER!@!@!
 

whitey

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Personally i have been keeping my eyes on the Juniper EX4300, better fit for me at home with 1, 10 and 40gb ports all in one switch
Looks at this and 'cries' myself to sleep tonight thinking abt 3 years ago I bought a HP Procurve 2910-AL and added the 10G J9008 modules (two of em')...guess what I paid then...just abt the same as this ebay listing for a EX4300 LOADED.

Juniper EX4300-48T-AFI 48-Port Switch 2x PSU 2x Fans 4x 40GbE 10GB Uplink Ears | eBay

:-( SUPER sad face...now I can't even unload that 2910-AL switch to ANYONE lol (minus 10G modules now though, go figure had to re-coup some cost)

EDIT, Holy crap, is that built-in 4 ports of 40G on the back of the EX4300 AND the option (in the ebay listing looks like it has it) to add-on ANOTHER 4 ports of 40G on the front? Listing looks like it has both...AWESOME!

DOUBLE EDIT: I am freaking blind, even cooler/tradeoff, has 4 ports of 10G SFP+ on front add-on card and 4 ports of 40G on back built-in right? Sorry to pester, I'll go RTFM, prolly has all kinds of module options.
 
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pyro_

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Ohh you knows I luvs me some junos :-D Yeah i saw those as well but what were they 4 40G ports, good as my 4 10G ex3300 ports....
For me currently having 4 40gb and 4 10gb ports would work out great for home use. Dont currently plan on needing many more 40gb ports that that for the next little while and already have all the 10gb ports i need for a while
 

whitey

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I fully concur good sir, it'd be the perfect fit for a LONG time for me as well...hell...I'll add that to the 'dream' list.
 

pyro_

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and oh ya you can also get them with poe+ for the 1gb ports, like i said pretty much the dream home lab switch right there except i am not sure i would like the power consumption on it lol
 
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whitey

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and oh ya you can also get them with poe+ for the 1gb ports, like i said pretty much the dream home lab switch right there except i am not sure i would like the power consumption on it lol
Swapped out my EX3300 non-poe for a poe+ model recently ='s happy AP's/voip phones/surveillance cams.
 

Blinky 42

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Sub $500 I think they might be too cheap to pass up on...

@Patrick what are you using for your 40G switches now - more Gnodal hw or did you go with some of the Quanta switches to match the recent 10G switches?

10G is nice, but.. need more speed. The ex4300 would be nice as well, Junos makes so much more sense than the other CLIs

I am also curious to see what folks think of these 20x 40GbE QSFP+ with 4x 100GbE QSFP28 Switch S8050-20Q4C | FS.COM when they become available.
 

pyro_

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DOUBLE EDIT: I am freaking blind, even cooler/tradeoff, has 4 ports of 10G SFP+ on front add-on card and 4 ports of 40G on back built-in right? Sorry to pester, I'll go RTFM, prolly has all kinds of module options.
Correct 4 port 10g module on the front and the 4 40g ports are built in on the back
 

Patrick

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@Patrick what are you using for your 40G switches now - more Gnodal hw or did you go with some of the Quanta switches to match the recent 10G switches?

....

I am also curious to see what folks think of these 20x 40GbE QSFP+ with 4x 100GbE QSFP28 Switch S8050-20Q4C | FS.COM when they become available.
Arista this go-round.

Next will be switches I can move to something like Cumulus on. I liked the old Cumulus licensing better for labs where the switches were unlikely to last 24+ months.
 

whitey

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Arista makes some NICE switches, that and I hear their OS (Arista EOS) is essentially Fedora based w/ access to under the hood capabilities and they actually encourage this to advantageous folks instead of just saying 'NOT SUPPORTED' like most all the other vendors. Could easily run tcpdump/nmap/netcat/screen/vnstat/etc. on them and they should just tick.
 

i386

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Are the Juniper switches picky about dac/transceivers? Or do they work with cisco sfp+/mellanox qsfp dacs?
 

Blinky 42

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Are the Juniper switches picky about dac/transceivers? Or do they work with cisco sfp+/mellanox qsfp dacs?
So far I have not had any DAC or SFP+ optics not work in my ex3300's, HP, Cisco, Arista, Mellanox and Generic/random off eBay all seem ok.
 
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kriegspiel

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For the benefit of plebes like me, how do those of you with access to such exotic stuff in a homelab setting use them? I can see that getting familiar with the hardware and configuration options is useful (and of course, the "because it's there" motivation!), but I'm having a hard time imagining the kind of storage and IO workload that'd use any significant proportion of such a switch's capabilities outside of a datacenter!
 

whitey

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For the benefit of plebes like me, how do those of you with access to such exotic stuff in a homelab setting use them? I can see that getting familiar with the hardware and configuration options is useful (and of course, the "because it's there" motivation!), but I'm having a hard time imagining the kind of storage and IO workload that'd use any significant proportion of such a switch's capabilities outside of a datacenter!
Many of us work in enterprise IT env's and use our 'home lab' bordering on full on mini datacenters to test/validate designs/architecture/technologies that we very well use to bolster our skillsets to benefit 'the day job'. I like to call it 'avoidance of a CLM' (Career Limiting Move) so we cut our teeth on this stuff here before we make an arse of ourselves in our career path's/colleague's eyes :-D

That and the cool factor of course, I may be able to drive a small subset of a sustained performance envelop similar to what I do at work but you're right, it's not apples to apples/1:1

10GbE certainly is getting a lil' long in the tooth for even home use w/ zealous users like us. Have a read at this ditty to get a idea of why faster interconnects/fabrics are a 'necessary evil'

25 Is the New 10, 50 Is the new 40, 100 Is the New Amazing | Mellanox Technologies Blog