10Gbit NAS - 2
This is a continuation of the story about a budget network storage for a photographer with 10Gbit access over the network.
The project is slowly developing; computers and workstations are being replaced with more advanced models. And in particular, a step was taken to replace several existing ones with a central switch.
What was needed was a switch that could collect all the traffic and, if possible, not cost as much as a corporate model. The choice fell on the Cisco SG500X.
Probably every engineer working in the field of corporate computer networks is found with Cisco Catalyst switches. “Workhorses” of type 2960 are placed in dozens of pieces, connected to stacks, fed IP phones and other peripherals via PoE.
I got it, took it out of the box, assigned an IP, picked it up to the control system, set it up 1 time and forget it.
With models for small business experience less, at least for me. They do not fall into the cheap segment, but the functionality is interesting.
For a specific case, the switch needed
- the ability to connect 10G Ethernet
- the ability to connect conventional 1G Ethernet links,
- segment the network into VLANs (for photo traffic, for IP video surveillance cameras, for access control and automation systems).
10G links are needed for workstations at which photo processing takes place, and for the server - photo archive storage.
In the selected switch model, there are 24 regular gigabit ports for RJ45, plus 4 10G ports for SFP + modules. And another 2 5G ports for stacking switches. According to the documentation, the ports for the stack can be used for regular connections, but in practice this has not yet been tested.
The price of the switch is in the region of 40 thousand. rubles at retail. Not a little, but acceptable for the existing functionality.
From the previous 10G system, the transceiver for multimode optics was removed from the server and put into the switch. And the server and another workstation were connected to the switch by twinax cable 10GBase-CU SFP +.
The guaranteed working length of such cables is up to 5m. All that is next is through transceivers to optics.
Twinax cables from Cisco are quite expensive. 5 meters are sold in Moscow at 5 - 6 thousand rubles. It was possible to order for $ 20-30 via ebay, but decided not to take risks, since there was a negative experience.
And then - everything was simple.
The switch was turned on, booted up in a couple of minutes, received an address from DHCP on the router, after the first login through the web interface the password was changed, a fixed IP was set, the operating mode was changed from Stack to Standalone - and we can assume that the basic configuration is complete. Yes, more Jumbo Frames have been included.
By default, this model works in L3 mode.
And it works. Even 50 dollar Chinese 10G multimode optical transceivers wound up.
In terms of performance, no noticeable changes in the exchange rate between the server and workstations were found. Even running on a server and a slave. To test the speed of 10G interfaces, the NTttcp test utility stations couldn’t noticeably load the switch CPU.
All other settings of VLANs and other delights will be later. They are not unusual. Again, there will be a reason to read the 550 page guide for the administrator.
Of the shortcomings found - in some cases, the web interface responds, scrolls through rather slowly. Moreover, the built-in cooling fan is noisy. In my case, louder than the server with the main disk array. Do not put this in the living room :-)
And I made one conclusion for myself - network equipment manufacturers recognized that 10Gbit is needed in small businesses. There is something to download, there is a demand for such equipment, which this project confirmed.
The project is slowly developing; computers and workstations are being replaced with more advanced models. And in particular, a step was taken to replace several existing ones with a central switch.
What was needed was a switch that could collect all the traffic and, if possible, not cost as much as a corporate model. The choice fell on the Cisco SG500X.
Probably every engineer working in the field of corporate computer networks is found with Cisco Catalyst switches. “Workhorses” of type 2960 are placed in dozens of pieces, connected to stacks, fed IP phones and other peripherals via PoE.
I got it, took it out of the box, assigned an IP, picked it up to the control system, set it up 1 time and forget it.
With models for small business experience less, at least for me. They do not fall into the cheap segment, but the functionality is interesting.
For a specific case, the switch needed
- the ability to connect 10G Ethernet
- the ability to connect conventional 1G Ethernet links,
- segment the network into VLANs (for photo traffic, for IP video surveillance cameras, for access control and automation systems).
10G links are needed for workstations at which photo processing takes place, and for the server - photo archive storage.
In the selected switch model, there are 24 regular gigabit ports for RJ45, plus 4 10G ports for SFP + modules. And another 2 5G ports for stacking switches. According to the documentation, the ports for the stack can be used for regular connections, but in practice this has not yet been tested.
The price of the switch is in the region of 40 thousand. rubles at retail. Not a little, but acceptable for the existing functionality.
From the previous 10G system, the transceiver for multimode optics was removed from the server and put into the switch. And the server and another workstation were connected to the switch by twinax cable 10GBase-CU SFP +.
The guaranteed working length of such cables is up to 5m. All that is next is through transceivers to optics.
Twinax cables from Cisco are quite expensive. 5 meters are sold in Moscow at 5 - 6 thousand rubles. It was possible to order for $ 20-30 via ebay, but decided not to take risks, since there was a negative experience.
And then - everything was simple.
The switch was turned on, booted up in a couple of minutes, received an address from DHCP on the router, after the first login through the web interface the password was changed, a fixed IP was set, the operating mode was changed from Stack to Standalone - and we can assume that the basic configuration is complete. Yes, more Jumbo Frames have been included.
By default, this model works in L3 mode.
And it works. Even 50 dollar Chinese 10G multimode optical transceivers wound up.
In terms of performance, no noticeable changes in the exchange rate between the server and workstations were found. Even running on a server and a slave. To test the speed of 10G interfaces, the NTttcp test utility stations couldn’t noticeably load the switch CPU.
All other settings of VLANs and other delights will be later. They are not unusual. Again, there will be a reason to read the 550 page guide for the administrator.
Of the shortcomings found - in some cases, the web interface responds, scrolls through rather slowly. Moreover, the built-in cooling fan is noisy. In my case, louder than the server with the main disk array. Do not put this in the living room :-)
And I made one conclusion for myself - network equipment manufacturers recognized that 10Gbit is needed in small businesses. There is something to download, there is a demand for such equipment, which this project confirmed.
