I've asked this in a different way in that other forum (which has apparently just totally disappeared, what's up with that?), but I'll ask again.
One client I work with is cheap, and to be honest, that's most of my experience since working with small ISPs since the mid 90's. I generally can do pretty cool stuff on a small budget. Anyhow... we currently buy very cheap 3550's for use in smaller metro buildings where we buy a metro-e tail circuit back to our NNI and re-sell within the building. Most customers want less than 100Mb/s, so we're generally OK. Rate-limiting works well enough for sub-port-rate connections (it's a bit hackish how we do the egress towards the customer, but it works).
However, we have a location (and hopefully eventually a few more) where we have more than one customer that wants more than 100Mb/s.
What's a decent replacement for the 3550 that gives me a basically compatible config, but 24 or 48 10/100/1000 ports?
EOL is fine, obviously.
2960x but check the features, it's an access switch not metro Ethernet
Depends on the exact features you need. 3550-12T which I am sure you already know, but it doesn't have the port count you want. 2960G and 3560G models are in the middle of EOL and have a couple years till end of hardware support. I don't know of anything cheaper/older with 24/48 gig interfaces. Get them on ebay for sub $400.
-Otanx
Check out a 2970, they come in two models. The 1 RU is perfect. Gig interfaces and sometimes remarkably cheap. It's layer 2 only, not sure if you're really using layer 3.
I second the 2960G's. I have a lot of small clients on tight budgets and those have been great for price vs performance/features. Do keep in mind though that they aren't using them in a carrier capacity though so you would have to research the feature set to make sure it matches what you need.
I agree, the 2900 series is a knotch above the 3500 series - lots of limitations lifted, and you can run IOS 15.0, not 12.5
Damn, sorry for the delay, something is eating the forum notifications along the way it seems.
I'll check these out - we do need basic L3, so I think that kills the 2960-X, but what about the 2960-XR?
Also as a quick fix, I could use a 3550-12T if it's feature-compatible with the 24/48 port 3550's we run now. Any weird limitations on that specific switch, like smaller buffers or a backplane with less than line-rate bandwidth?
edit: also what about the 3750 series? Those are plentiful and cheap as well... Not immediately clear what the differences are in the various models.
seriously, if you're looking @ EOL stuff (for new deployments... er, ok) then just go and grab the cheapest HP/Huawei/Dell etc. multilayer and be done with it.
Heck, why not consider the small business SG-300 series, works fine in my lab.
yes, anything a 3550 can do, a 3750 can do, except better, and the hw queues are different.
Just a quick followup - swapped a 3750 in, everyone is happy, even me.
I had to alter my rate-limiting setup a bit, but that actually made it a little less stupid than it was before. :)
One day I'll look at some non-cisco options, but for now I need something Rancid can talk to and I like being able to move configs around easily. Web UIs can suck it.