Well I bought a Cisco SG300-28 for a quarter rack that I have co-located.
I don't really have much experience with managed switches but here's my inital impressions:
* The web interface is slow. Reminds me of a $20 wireless router.
* Upgrading the firmware/boot code is a multi-step pain. Why can't there simply be a one-click upgrade that checks for and installs an authenticated firmware from Cisco's website?
To upgrade to the latest firmware I have to upgrade to an intermediate firmware, reboot, upgrade to a new boot code, then upgrade to a new firmware.
But here's the kicker. The firmware can be upgraded via https, but the boot code needs scp or tftp. No problem, right? I run an ssh server. But can I put in a custom port? Nope!
I have no idea whether alternative switches have one click upgrades (even if you have to one click to an intermediate firmware, and then one click again to the final that would be okay).
But they should. Everyone should.
Even if you assume your users are experts, there's no reason to waste all your users times. 500,000 Cisco SMB switches sold to customes (just a guess) times a half hour an upgrade, is a lot of wasted users time.
I don't really have much experience with managed switches but here's my inital impressions:
* The web interface is slow. Reminds me of a $20 wireless router.
* Upgrading the firmware/boot code is a multi-step pain. Why can't there simply be a one-click upgrade that checks for and installs an authenticated firmware from Cisco's website?
To upgrade to the latest firmware I have to upgrade to an intermediate firmware, reboot, upgrade to a new boot code, then upgrade to a new firmware.
But here's the kicker. The firmware can be upgraded via https, but the boot code needs scp or tftp. No problem, right? I run an ssh server. But can I put in a custom port? Nope!
I have no idea whether alternative switches have one click upgrades (even if you have to one click to an intermediate firmware, and then one click again to the final that would be okay).
But they should. Everyone should.
Even if you assume your users are experts, there's no reason to waste all your users times. 500,000 Cisco SMB switches sold to customes (just a guess) times a half hour an upgrade, is a lot of wasted users time.