Experience with the Dell PowerConnect 8024F - compare to the Cisco Nexus 5010

Fri Jun 18 16:09:30 UTC 2010

Hi,

On Fri, 2010-06-18 at 11:57 -0400, Steven Fischer wrote:
> Does anyone have any experience with the Dell PowerConnect 8024F 10-gig
> switch that they'd be willing to share?  How does it perform?  How reliable
> is it?  My experiences with the Dell switches have been less than favorable
> to this point, but I am willing to concede that some of that may be colored
> by my Cisco bias.  Would you trust this Dell switch in a high-performance
> computing environment, where the ability to move data for sustained
> durations at rates close to line speed is paramount, along with
> high-reliability/high-availability?
> 
> Any feedback is welcomed.
> 

Dell switches are usually Foundry gear relabeled, so it should be ok.
We are using Dell switches alongside actual Foundry gear in a cloud
environment and have had no problems.

Foundry's firmwares have some bugs though as far as SNMP goes.  For
example, our traffic utilization graphs start missing data after about
120 days and we have to reboot them.  This happens on both actual
Foundry gear and the rebranded Dell stuff.  If you're just using the
switches as an interconnect (MPI?), this probably isn't a big deal for
you.  I have heard that newer firmware fixes that problem, but we
haven't had time to test out upgrading so it hasn't been done yet.

The Nexus switch line is also very good, but too expensive for my blood.
I have to eat...  The management is very well done, but the Nexus OS is
feature-lacking in comparison to traditional Cisco IOS.  So, right now,
the Foundry gear is probably a better option.

William