"Kevin P. Fleming" <kpfleming@starnetworks.us> wrote:> I have yet to come across a small business office that could not be well > served with one or two reliable 16-port switches, of the sub-$100 > variety. If they have more than 32 nodes, then they will likely have > some on-site staff, and then a managed platform might make sense. In my > opinion, the "managed switch" is providing no additional value at all if > no one ever uses the management interface. It certainly isn't going to > forward packets any differently, unless it implements QoS and there is a > demonstrated need for it on that LAN.The attractive feature for me on the Netgear switch is the PoE. Dot1q trunking is nice if they want to have their phones on a different VLAN than their PCs and have one drop to the desk, as well. Sure, a couple of sub-$100 16-port switches will do the job, but where can I buy sub-$100 16-port PoE switches? The alternative is power cubes, wall-warts, and more wire clutter. Those power cubes aren't free. Backing up a single PoE switch with a UPS is also a lot easier than installing UPSes under every desk where there is a phone. If you want your phones to work when the lights go out, the cost is going to be a wash when you factor in power cubes and separate UPSes. Or you'll need a lot of extension cords. It's the PoE that makes this switch look good to me, not the management. That's just icing on the cake for most small office deployments. -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Administration - jay@west.net WestNet: Connecting you to the planet. 805 884-6323 WB6RDV NetLojix Communications, Inc. - http://www.netlojix.com/
Jay Hennigan wrote:> It's the PoE that makes this switch look good to me, not the management. > That's just icing on the cake for most small office deployments.Exactly. That's why I'd prefer a dumb 12/16-port switch with PoE, since it would have to be cheaper than the managed version. It may only be $100 or $200 cheaper, but that's still money I don't want to spend :-) Since single-port PoE (_real_ 802.3af, not dumb) mid-span injectors can be purchased for around $40 each, I see no reason why putting the equivalent of 12 of them into a switch has to cost $700. In fact, putting 12 of them into a search ought to be _less_ expensive, since there are no cases, no cords, only a single power supply, etc. Right now, though, you pay nearly 100% more to have them inside the switch, as opposed to outside the switch. In addition, for a small installation, I'd very much like an 8-port unit, or even a 16-port unit with 4-port PoE plugin modules (so I could have 8 PoE ports and 8 non-PoE ports, or any other combination, at my discretion). There are so many companies making these boxes that I find it very hard to understand why no one has tapped this market yet.