40 GbE Switches - Mellanox, FS.com, something else...
- Thread starter Stril
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I don't have Arista support, so I'm not sure how to get it. I don't see MLAG on the SONiC roadmap: Features and Roadmap · Azure/SONiC Wiki · GitHub
SONiC is a work in progress as you can see by the roadmap. It has all the daemons wrapped in docker containers, which is a departure from the HPE OpenSwitch it is derived from. The configuration is a large XML file which I believe is integrated into the Azure stack. I haven't looked at it in depth yet, though, so I'm not certain how the control plane pieces together. I compiled it from github last week, but haven't looked at it further since I've other work at the moment.
SONiC is a work in progress as you can see by the roadmap. It has all the daemons wrapped in docker containers, which is a departure from the HPE OpenSwitch it is derived from. The configuration is a large XML file which I believe is integrated into the Azure stack. I haven't looked at it in depth yet, though, so I'm not certain how the control plane pieces together. I compiled it from github last week, but haven't looked at it further since I've other work at the moment.
Arista will allow you to use VARP. VARP + MLAG is a replacement for STP and VRRP. I.E. you can get redundant gateways and a redundant layer2 network without having half your links shut down and without having your traffic ping-pong to the active router (in VARP, all routers are active at once).
7050QX-32 is cheap and capable.
Dacs? Active/passive?
Or optical transceivers?
I have a 7050q-16 and tried IBM and Brocade branded passvice dacs and they work.
EMC and cisco branded optical transceiver are correctly recognised by the switch*.
*My mellanox cx3 refuses to work with these transceivers, will try again next month with original mellanox transceivers on client and the emc/cisco transceivers on switch side
Third party SFP's are not going to happen. I've spent countless hours on that. DAC's will work however. The idea with DAC's being, if two devices from two vendors both require their specific vendor code, then there is literally no way to buy a compatible DAC cable. So generally, nics and switches don't enforce cable branding for DACs. Maybe for AOC's as well but I haven't tested that.
Honestly it's going to be easier to buy optics coded for the switches than to try to get your current ones working. FS.com has decent prices and will code their optics to whatever vendor code you need.
If you really want, you could get an optic eeprom recoder. I didn't own any QSFP optics beforehand, so it was easier just to buy arista-coded third party optics than try to recode random ebay optics myself.
I have some Mellanox branded AOCs and Connectx3s and I have not found a way to make them work with the Arista EOS.
Yeah, like being said, the optical transceiver from third party would not support Arista EOS, but their DAC cable would work. I'm not sure Mellanox would work or not, but u mentioned fs.com would work. Their Arista compatible dac cable is compatible with my Arista switch. btw, they are very cost-effective.
My recent experience with FS.com hardware is ....
Caveat Emptor!
I thought i'd try these guys and bought one of their S3800-24T4S switches based on that it had a known chipset.
This product was actually shipped from Asia, not the USA, even though the online site said there was stock in the US. As a result I got stuck with a large customs import bill.
Poor documentation throughout. Even enabling the web interface was a bit of a challenge. There is no documentation for the web interface itself.
When the Web interface is finally enabled it defaults to Chinese and there is no English button to turn it on.
Poor technical support. Only my first two questions were answered from someone in Germany. I called the local support number and was told to submit my question by email.
I entered in four technical questions online. They were marked as solved but no answers given. Other questions I submitted by email were never answered.
There is no support area to see what the latest firmware is, etc. I asked support about firmware and was never answered.
Doing even simple things like setting up default gateways are not actually documented and I had to resort to other vendors documentation to figure it out.
The Web interface does not include anything to do with DHCP.
Jumbo frames are NOT supported even though the specs say they are.
I never got NTP time to work no matter what I tried despite having multiple other devices working fine with the same NTP server.
Ok, I got suckered...
Caveat Emptor!
I thought i'd try these guys and bought one of their S3800-24T4S switches based on that it had a known chipset.
This product was actually shipped from Asia, not the USA, even though the online site said there was stock in the US. As a result I got stuck with a large customs import bill.
Poor documentation throughout. Even enabling the web interface was a bit of a challenge. There is no documentation for the web interface itself.
When the Web interface is finally enabled it defaults to Chinese and there is no English button to turn it on.
Poor technical support. Only my first two questions were answered from someone in Germany. I called the local support number and was told to submit my question by email.
I entered in four technical questions online. They were marked as solved but no answers given. Other questions I submitted by email were never answered.
There is no support area to see what the latest firmware is, etc. I asked support about firmware and was never answered.
Doing even simple things like setting up default gateways are not actually documented and I had to resort to other vendors documentation to figure it out.
The Web interface does not include anything to do with DHCP.
Jumbo frames are NOT supported even though the specs say they are.
I never got NTP time to work no matter what I tried despite having multiple other devices working fine with the same NTP server.
Ok, I got suckered...
Iv recently had a chat with their presales people. Who Seem super eager to push their products.... (like freakin annoyingly spam like eager).
I was told that they would ve routed through whatever warehouse you asked Them to. In your shoes i would have just denied delivery and let it go back and asked Them to try again from the .us warehouse.
Might give Them a try at some point.. cant beat their prices for 40/100g gear tbh
I was told that they would ve routed through whatever warehouse you asked Them to. In your shoes i would have just denied delivery and let it go back and asked Them to try again from the .us warehouse.
Might give Them a try at some point.. cant beat their prices for 40/100g gear tbh
As someone else said, next time simply go "I didn't order anything from Asia - send it back" if the shipping carrier tries to collect customs fees from you. You could ask FS to refund you the fees - presumably they pay the same fees to import their product into the US and sell it here. On the other hand, if you're talking about the customs "processing"* fees that the various shipping carriers try to charge and not the actual customs fees, then you're probably stuck.
* This is like the "regulatory compliance fee" on your cable or cell phone bill - despite being lumped into the "other charges and fees" to try to fool people into thinking it is a real government fee, it is just another way for the company to extract more money from you while claiming "We haven't raised our rates!".
As far as I can tell, lots of the FS electronic equipment is OEM'd from various mainland manufacturers - at least, I've found the exact same equipment for sale from a variety of suppliers on dhgate, ali, etc., just with different chassis colors and without the FS logo. Given that these other suppliers often have a larger variety of units and optional interface cards, I think FS is OEMing a subset of the available models.
This complicates tech support for a number of reasons. First, FS customer service has to process the questions themselves, probably translating into Chinese for the technical people. I have not confirmed this is the specific case with FS, but it has been my experience dealing with other Asian suppliers. Next, once the FS engineers understand the problem, they probably have to talk to the actual manufacturer to get answers. Then the answers need to come back, get translated into English, and sent back to you. They may have been mangled (or lost) along the way, which may not be the fault of FS. I have identical FS and non-FS equipment (the latter apparently from the real manufacturer) and answers to technical questions have been about the same - often unanswered, and sometimes perplexing answers which indicate that whoever wrote the answer didn't understand what I was asking.
FS has responded to a number of the issues I raised and provided updated firmware when pressed (in one case I had to point out to them that they shipped me 4 of the same product in the same order, with 2 different firmware versions, in order to get the update). One update utility had all of its prompts in abbreviated Chinese, so it was apparently for use in manufacturing / production and not for end users. I understand that - there's no point in translating it if they never planned to supply it to customers.
On some other issues, I am still waiting for answers, but the equipment is working so the issues are less pressing. And they told me how to switch the front panel menus from Chinese to English (no, it wasn't a switch so I can't help you with your specific issue).
I have commented to them about the inadequacy of their documentation quite a few times, and at one point they asked me for a sample of my technical writing. Nothing came of that, but if they're selling enough equipment, they probably don't think it is a priority to provide better documentation.
RE your comment on NTP, lots of low-end devices don't actually NTP, but a cut-down SNTP or even "time" (TCP port 37) service. A tcpdump / wireshark / etc. packet trace on the management port would probably tell you what it is trying to do.