Upgrading to 40gbE need some help

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FingerBlaster

Member
Feb 27, 2019
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I Just ordered an EX-4300-48P switch with 40gbE uplinks, but i'm a little confused as I've never worked with 40gbE before.

The mellanox cards I can find are only qsfp not qsfp+ which the switch I just ordered is... is that an issue?

Since I will not be using infiniband, do I care about the extra offloading the mellanox CX3 Pro offers? Or is the non pro fine? These will be running on 2 ESXI boxes and a Solaris 11.4 box.

As far as DAC cables go, what's the best bet? As far as the connectors on the DAC cable, does the mellanox NIC care if i get a card that's Juniper encoded on both ends? or Do i need a custom cable that one endpoint is Juniper and the other is Mellanox?

Since i don't know anything about good deals here, what do you recommend for cables and cards?
 

herby

Active Member
Aug 18, 2013
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Mellanox cards arn't that picky and so far neither is my Mellonx SX6012; but I don't know how Juniper is. My 40 GbE connections are all over cheap NetApp cables that were meant for a DAS.

I think for the most part crossing brand names works best with passive DACs. Active parts: lamps or cables are more likely to be rejected by the switch.

As far as QSFP vs QSFP+ a lot of eBay listing are going to be kind of lazy in their terminology. You're probably better checking the manufacturers site by part number; but I suspect most listings will really be QSFP+.
 
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747builder

Active Member
Dec 17, 2017
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I Just ordered an EX-4300-48P switch with 40gbE uplinks, but i'm a little confused as I've never worked with 40gbE before.

The mellanox cards I can find are only qsfp not qsfp+ which the switch I just ordered is... is that an issue?

Since I will not be using infiniband, do I care about the extra offloading the mellanox CX3 Pro offers? Or is the non pro fine? These will be running on 2 ESXI boxes and a Solaris 11.4 box.

As far as DAC cables go, what's the best bet? As far as the connectors on the DAC cable, does the mellanox NIC care if i get a card that's Juniper encoded on both ends? or Do i need a custom cable that one endpoint is Juniper and the other is Mellanox?

Since i don't know anything about good deals here, what do you recommend for cables and cards?
I'm waiting for my ex4300-48p to arrive. with the older switches/srx's, they arent picky about SFP I have in mine (ex4200/ex2200/ex2200-c) and my srx320. I have a mixture of cisco, juniper, brocade sfp and they work fine, with that said if you ever have to open a case with Jtac (nightmare), they won't support anything not running juniper SFP or juniper branded DAC cables.
 

747builder

Active Member
Dec 17, 2017
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My understanding is for eBay purchases you are 100% on your own? Unless you pay to recertify the device and buy support.
I've bought many juniper switches from anywhere from craigslist to eBay and dealt with jtac a few times and my experience has been as long as you DONT mention where you bought them and DONT volunteer the info, I've gotten juniper to replace defective switches. it isn't easy dealing with jtac and can be frustrating and take a lot of time.
 

oddball

Active Member
May 18, 2018
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To pile on. I have purchased support on devices purchase do through eBay with Juniper.

I purchase through a reseller online. Juniper always complains that the device isn’t associated with my account, but I’ve received full support.

You have to be somewhat picky on how you buy, but it’s possible.

Not possible at all with Cisco.