atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Networking Switches for VoIP - suggestions?

Looking for decent switches in a variety of port sizes, but reasonably priced that will support VLan, QoS and PoE. Suggestions?

Adtran or Cisco...
Personally I like the Adtran NetVanta switches.

Linksys (now owned by Cisco) has some really great switches and the new line looks great.

Extreme networks or Adtran NetVanta.

These switches are what I advise to my customers on VOIP networks.

Don't mess with cheap switches. Remember you are running voice and data on a single infrastructure. You essentially have a wire with AT LEAST TWO VLANS on it, it is also carrying -48 VDC on it. My suggestion is to buy Cisco 3560 switches. If you buy something else will it work, yes but Cisco has some significant advantages over other equipment in a enterprise network. Let me go over a couple. First Catalyst (Cisco) switches run VTP which means basically I can configure VLANs in my VTP server (a switch running in VTP server mode) and as long as the the other switches are in the same VTP domain, the VLAN information will propagate to all of the switches in the domain.

Cisco switches run CDP which is the Cisco Discovery Protocol at Layer 2. This protocol allows you to do some cool things such as, view specific information about neighboring Cisco devices in you network. This information consists of the IP address, the IOS version, the capabilities of the device. Here is an example:

BIG_SW> (enable) sh cdp neig detail
Port (Our Port): 3/1
Device-ID: RSM.gregcave.no-ip.org
Device Addresses:
IP Address: 192.168.1.1
Holdtime: 169 sec
Capabilities: ROUTER
Version:
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C5RSM Software (C5RSM-JK9O3SV-M), Version 12.2(40), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 1986-2006 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Thu 12-Oct-06 18:36 by pwade
Platform: cisco RSP2
Port-ID (Port on Neighbors's Device): Vlan1
VTP Management Domain: unknown
Native VLAN: unknown
Duplex: unknown
System Name: unknown
System Object ID: unknown
Management Addresses: unknown
Physical Location: unknown
___________________________________________________________________________
Port (Our Port): 4/2
Device-ID: R1
Device Addresses:
IP Address: 10.25.1.1
Holdtime: 160 sec
Capabilities: ROUTER
Version:
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-IK9O3S3-M), Version 12.3(22), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Technical Support: https://www.cisco.com/techsupport
Copyright (c) 1986-2007 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Wed 24-Jan-07 16:48 by ccai
Platform: cisco 2620
Port-ID (Port on Neighbors's Device): FastEthernet0/0
VTP Management Domain: unknown
Native VLAN: unknown
Duplex: full
System Name: unknown
System Object ID: unknown
Management Addresses: unknown
Physical Location: unknown
___________________________________________________________________________
Port (Our Port): 4/3
Device-ID: PENN
Device Addresses:
IP Address: 10.1.1.2
Holdtime: 129 sec
Capabilities: ROUTER
Version:
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C1700 Software (C1700-ADVSECURITYK9-M), Version 12.3(19), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Technical Support: https://www.cisco.com/techsupport
Copyright (c) 1986-2006 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Thu 11-May-06 21:04 by evmiller
Platform: cisco 1721
Port-ID (Port on Neighbors's Device): FastEthernet0
VTP Management Domain: unknown
Native VLAN: unknown
Duplex: full
System Name: unknown
System Object ID: unknown
Management Addresses: unknown
Physical Location: unknown
___________________________________________________________________________
Port (Our Port): 4/5
Device-ID: CCM1.cisco.com
Device Addresses:
IP Address: 192.168.2.50
Holdtime: 165 sec
Capabilities: HOST
Version:
Cisco Discovery Protocol v4.0
Platform: Win2000 Server
Port-ID (Port on Neighbors's Device): Eth 1/1
VTP Management Domain: unknown
Native VLAN: unknown
Duplex: unknown
System Name: unknown
System Object ID: unknown
Management Addresses: unknown
Physical Location: unknown
___________________________________________________________________________
Port (Our Port): 4/8
Device-ID: SEP0007501217F1
Device Addresses:
IP Address: 192.168.2.30
Holdtime: 135 sec
Capabilities: HOST PHONE
Version:
P00307010200
Platform: Cisco IP Phone 7960
Port-ID (Port on Neighbors's Device): Port 1
VTP Management Domain: unknown
Native VLAN: unknown
Duplex: full
System Name: unknown
System Object ID: unknown
Management Addresses: unknown
Physical Location: unknown
___________________________________________________________________________
Port (Our Port): 4/18
Device-ID: CaveLab
Device Addresses:
IP Address: 192.168.1.200
Holdtime: 139 sec
Capabilities: ROUTER
Version:
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) 2500 Software (C2500-I-L), Version 12.0(17a), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 1986-2002 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Mon 11-Feb-02 05:55 by kellythw
Platform: cisco 2509
Port-ID (Port on Neighbors's Device): Ethernet0
VTP Management Domain: unknown
Native VLAN: unknown
Duplex: unknown
System Name: unknown
System Object ID: unknown
Management Addresses: unknown
Physical Location: unknown
___________________________________________________________________________
Port (Our Port): 5/6
Device-ID: R2
Device Addresses:
IP Address: 10.1.3.1
Holdtime: 125 sec
Capabilities: ROUTER
Version:
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-D-M), Version 12.2(2)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
TAC Support: https://www.cisco.com/cgi-bin/ibld/view.pl?i=support
Copyright (c) 1986-2001 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Sat 02-Jun-01 16:20 by ccai
Platform: cisco 2610
Port-ID (Port on Neighbors's Device): Ethernet0/0
VTP Management Domain: unknown
Native VLAN: unknown
Duplex: half
System Name: unknown
System Object ID: unknown
Management Addresses: unknown
Physical Location: unknown

This is great information for troubleshooting. Other things CDP is used for is AutoQoS at L2. I can tell my switch to trust IP Phones and the switch will perform QoS at L2. There are a several manufactures outside of Cisco that run CDP. As I showed you here is an Cisco 7960 IP phone from my lab CDP discovered.

Port (Our Port): 4/8
Device-ID: SEP0007501217F1
Device Addresses:
IP Address: 192.168.2.30
Holdtime: 135 sec
Capabilities: HOST PHONE
Version:
P00307010200
Platform: Cisco IP Phone 7960
Port-ID (Port on Neighbors's Device): Port 1
VTP Management Domain: unknown
Native VLAN: unknown
Duplex: full
System Name: unknown
System Object ID: unknown
Management Addresses: unknown
Physical Location: unknown

I do not know of any low end switches that do this stuff.

Greg

Thanks for all of the detail, Greg. I appreciate your info!

You know I hate to restate the obvious but Linksys is owned by Cisco and they are making a good switch. The difference between the Linksys switches and the cisco switches is that i dont have to throw all the specs at you and convince you to buy them because quite simply they work. They work very well and QOS is there for voip. The only difference is price points and you as the installer do not have to 23 acronyms listed behind your name to install them. Sorry to be so blunt by I am an old country boy and if I can buy a 3 tine pitch fork for less then a 4 tine pitch fork and still pitch the same amount of hay?????

based on past experience tex, I tend to agree! What is the new line you spoke of?

The whole works. They have revamped the look of the switches and are now providing POE switches. These are professional looking boxes.
Check out this news clip.
https://www.crn.com/storage/197008515

Ok let me ask you this, on a Linksys switch how can you tell which port is causing a broadcast storm cased by a faulty NIC? On a Linksys switch how do you create VLANs on one switch and allow that information to propagate the switch fabric without configuring every switch (assuming that it is managed). On a Linksys switch how can configure specific ports to specific MAC addresses so that only selected users can gain access? On a Linksys switch how do log specific events to a central server (SYSLOG) to allow you to quickly troubleshoot significant events? As you stated how do you set QoS on a Linksys switch? How do you configure AAA on a Linksys switch? What about spanning tree?

I have no problem with Linksys equipment per se, it is what it is. Cheap stuff for mainly home use that has very limited capability with a good price. Unfortunately you are buying equipment that is going to run your business and time is money. When your pitch fork breaks it does not shut down the farm. Low end hardware is simply inadequate for enterprise operation. I believe if you go to Linksys's site they would be the first to confirm this.