Brocade ICX Series (cheap & powerful 10gbE/40gbE switching)

[itronin]

I've moved the PDU for my network gear to an APC rack-mount UPS and it's holding steady for now...fingers crossed. Stability is top priority since I WFH, but this weekend I might do some experimenting with various power scenarios and see what I can deduce.

I went down the path of replacing ram (thanks @fohdeesha) , didn't solve it. check air flow, trying single psu, from dual etc. etc.

the 6610 seems really really picky about power. I had a very used and abused eaton 5px 2200 and the switches worked well there till the batteries flaked out (would not maintain full charge any more). The UPS later crapped out so don't know if it was really batteries or ups.

I've had excellent uptime on streent power with regard to random reboots (none). Only resets have been from power glitches. I'm fortunate that I have very good street power.

 

[mshook]

It could be an ICX thing: I have 2 6450 and I've experienced micro power outages where my average electronic devices (TV, amplifier, NAS, PC, ...) would shut down or reboot. Except the 2 switches in question: they'd just be dead. They'd be electrically up as some LEDs would be up but they wouldn't work at all. On both occasions, I had to power cycle them to get them back.

So it could be they're very sensitive to power quality (or just made to work in a datacenter with really stable AC).

 

[SylvainM]

I just got my ICX 6450 and I'm not having any luck with SFP+ DAC cables. They all say not supported.
This is my first 10g switch, so it's all new to me.
I'm trying to hook up my Dell R730 with a X520 10g card and I've also got a couple of other DL380 with HP 10G cards
What should I get? or should I just go SR lc to lc patch fiber? cable run is in the same rack so about 6 feet

Port   1/2/1: Type  : 10GE  Passive Twinax  5m (SFP +) (Not supported)
         Vendor: CISCO-TYCO         Version: R   
         Part# : 1-2053783-3        Serial#: TED1729C53N

And I also tried a 10Gtek

show media ethernet 1/2/3
Port   1/2/3: Type  : 10GE  Passive Twinax  3m (SFP +) (Not supported)
             Vendor: OEM                Version: 01  
             Part# : CAB-10GSFP-P3M     Serial#: S220404040505

 

[noduck]

Port   1/2/1: Type  : 10GE  Passive Twinax  5m (SFP +) (Not supported)
         Vendor: CISCO-TYCO         Version: R 
         Part# : 1-2053783-3        Serial#: TED1729C53N

I think you can safely ignore that message. I also have a 6450, and all my DACs say "(Not supported)", they work anyway.

 

[bwahaha]

@SylvainM Have you updated it and gotten the licensing taken care of already?

ICX6450 - Fohdeesha Docs

Then

ICX6450 Licensing - Fohdeesha Docs

As far as dac vs fiber, I went fiber because lc cables are cheaper per ft (and if you're patient, you can get lots of the modules for, like $1/each, 2nd hand), are more compact so storing them isn't nearly the chore, I can get lc keystones for various needs. They're a little more fragile than a dac (but imo, if you're manhandling something hard enough to break a fiber cable, you need to take a break).

A passive dac uses less power, iirc, and if you don't plan on running more than the 3m or so in a rack, a dac will do just fine.

 

[fohdeesha]

I just got my ICX 6450 and I'm not having any luck with SFP+ DAC cables. They all say not supported.
This is my first 10g switch, so it's all new to me.
I'm trying to hook up my Dell R730 with a X520 10g card and I've also got a couple of other DL380 with HP 10G cards
What should I get? or should I just go SR lc to lc patch fiber? cable run is in the same rack so about 6 feet

Port   1/2/1: Type  : 10GE  Passive Twinax  5m (SFP +) (Not supported)
         Vendor: CISCO-TYCO         Version: R  
         Part# : 1-2053783-3        Serial#: TED1729C53N

And I also tried a 10Gtek

show media ethernet 1/2/3
Port   1/2/3: Type  : 10GE  Passive Twinax  3m (SFP +) (Not supported)
             Vendor: OEM                Version: 01 
             Part# : CAB-10GSFP-P3M     Serial#: S220404040505

anything other than brocade branded stuff will show that message under show media, it doesn't affect anything and you can ignore it

 

[NablaSquaredG]

Has anyone started reverse engineering the VDX license logic? Sometimes they can be found for very little money, so VDX6740 can be a nice alternative to something like Arista 7050TX if you can get all the 10GBase-T ports unlocked

 

[fohdeesha]

Has anyone started reverse engineering the VDX license logic? Sometimes they can be found for very little money, so VDX6740 can be a nice alternative to something like Arista 7050TX if you can get all the 10GBase-T ports unlocked

I would never

That said, the vdxs are first gen 10gbase-t phy, they take a comical amount of power and heat. Also you have to deal with NOS

 

[NablaSquaredG]

That said, the vdxs are first gen 10gbase-t phy, they take a comical amount of power and heat. Also you have to deal with NOS

Yeah yeah that's for sure. It's just an option when they're so cheap that it simply doesn't matter, compared with alternatives like the 7050TX (which probably also has the same first gen 10GBase-T PHYs)

 

[Pallee]

yes absolutely

See https://servak.com.ua/image/manual/Switch/Switch_Brocade_ICX_6430-48_48_port_User_Guide_Servak.pdf ("Brocade ICX 6430 and ICX 6450 Stackable Switches Hardware Installation Guide")

page 35

"You can connect one or both ports in a trunk. Connecting both ports in a trunk increases stacking bandwidth and provides resilience
• If you connect both ports in a trunk, both ports must connect to both ports of one trunk on another device
• When configuring a trunk, the ports in the same column are always trunked (port 1 to port 2, port 3 to port 4). One or both of the two sets of stacking ports can be trunked (or untrunked)"

FIGURE 29 shows a topology with trunked stack ports

I never got to properly say thank you for this answer!

Here are some follow-up questions if I were to stack 3x 6450 switches:
1) Can one of the stacking links be aggregated while the others are not?
2) If I stack in a non-aggregated ring config, will that increase the overall bandwidth capacity of the network or just provide redundancy? Say if one single 10G connection saturates one link, can other traffic go through the redundant path?

 

[Daeyx]

Hello,

I have a brocade 6450 48P switch that i have had for about a year and a half now running perfectly. I was doing some troubleshooting on my network and went to reload the switch. Everything came back up except my POE cameras. I noticed that it was no longer negotiating. Reloaded again and went into Inline power, attempted to turn it off and on with no luck. I noticed that the firmware stated 0.00, I paniced a little and went to reload the POE firmware, first try failed. Reloaed and SSH'd back in and then was able to successfully load the POE firmware back, installed 100%, reloaded. Came back in and saw version 2.10. Cameras still weren't coming back on, reloaded the GUI and the firmware went 0.00 again. Am I SOL with POE now? Typing "Show Chassis" shows "Power supply 1 (NA - AC - PoE) present, status ok"/

Anything else I can try or is it dead?

Edit: I loaded the firmware, it went through a reload, firmware still shows present, everything shows as "ok" from what I can tell. But it still won't negotiate with my cameras.

 

[mshook]

Could be a stupid question but could it be you never saved the configuration and the interface in question doesn't have poe enabled?

What's the configuration of the interface?

 

[Daeyx]

Could be a stupid question but could it be you never saved the configuration and the interface in question doesn't have poe enabled?

What's the configuration of the interface?

I had saved the configuration. I have also attempted to enable and disable inline power on all the ports several times. I can see that the ports are on in the default configuration (all thats ever been needed) with the admin State being ON but the Operation State OFF. 74000 out of 74000 mwatts are avail. It just refuses to recognize that POE devices are plugged into it.

 

[mshook]

And I assume you power cycled the switch as well?

 

[sic0048]

Hello,

I have a brocade 6450 48P switch that i have had for about a year and a half now running perfectly. I was doing some troubleshooting on my network and went to reload the switch. Everything came back up except my POE cameras. I noticed that it was no longer negotiating. Reloaded again and went into Inline power, attempted to turn it off and on with no luck. I noticed that the firmware stated 0.00, I paniced a little and went to reload the POE firmware, first try failed. Reloaed and SSH'd back in and then was able to successfully load the POE firmware back, installed 100%, reloaded. Came back in and saw version 2.10. Cameras still weren't coming back on, reloaded the GUI and the firmware went 0.00 again. Am I SOL with POE now? Typing "Show Chassis" shows "Power supply 1 (NA - AC - PoE) present, status ok"/

Anything else I can try or is it dead?

Edit: I loaded the firmware, it went through a reload, firmware still shows present, everything shows as "ok" from what I can tell. But it still won't negotiate with my cameras.

I don't have any suggestions unfortunately. I just want to say that if it turns out to be a hardware failure, it is possible that the POE power supply was on it's last legs and rebooting the switch caused it to kick the bucket for good.

 

[bwahaha]

View attachment 31352

I've had many issues with the gui properly executing commands. Wanna make sure you used the cli (serial or ssh) versus the web shitterface.

 

[beerbarrel]

Hello and thanks for the access. This is my first post here and of course there is a reason. I picked up a 6450 from Ebay. It was set back to factory settings. It took me a day or two to get things figured out. I know very little about networking Ill say that right off the bat. My goal is to get as much of my network wired as possible hence the 48 port switch. Long story short, I went through the guide that was posted at the beginning of this topic. Thanks for making the guide it was pretty much idiot proof. Anyway, things went fine until I went to install the license. I never had any license installed. When I went through the process, it did not quite go like the guide said it would. My question is this, in the Gui it looks like all 4 10G ports are active. Is there a way to check in the cli to ensure it? In the GUI they do say 10G full now....sorry to rattle on...

thx

 

[bwahaha]

...

show interface ethernet 1/2/3

That;ll give all the details of the port. Change the numbers for whichever port you want to check.
On my 6610, it's the 4th line down, which is the Configured speed.

 

[beerbarrel]

show interface ethernet 1/2/3

That;ll give all the details of the port. Change the numbers for whichever port you want to check.
On my 6610, it's the 4th line down, which is the Configured speed.

Thanks...that did it!

 

[PGlover]

Ok. I have done a dumb thing on my ICX6610.

I changed the speed on one of my 10g ports (1/3/1) to 1g. When I try to set the port back to 10g, I'm getting the message:

PoD: No license present for port 1/3/1

What should I do? I don't want to impact all of the other 10g ports.

FYI. The show license command shows the POD license as active.