Extreme Networks

FredrikB · ‎04-30-2020

Hi!

Would the X440-G2 be a suitable access switch in a large network? Segmentation is OK so most places where these would sit have some 15 VLANs and a total of max 2500 MAC addresses. The X440 (non-G2) was not a very good switch in these situations with its tiny little CPU and a nonexistent table space for arp, multicast routes and so on. I know the G2 has much larger tables and probably a better CPU, but is it suitable in this role? There’s no fancy stuff going on, just L2 with ELRP, LAG, and EAPS in some cases (only as transit node). Access is 1 G and uplink will be 2 x 10 G (so 10 G license needed for the X440-G2).

Do you regret not buying the X450-G2 instead? Are you happy with the X440-G2? Please let me know your thoughts!

/Fredrik

Tomasz · ‎05-08-2020

Hi,

I’ve seen deployments with 4-5 and up to 7 stacked X440-G2s. With 4-5 it was still ok (but rather small network utilization on average - number of APs, cameras, VoIP), with 7 it was tough when we enabled Extreme Policy (ONEPolicy in EXOS docs) and Telemetry at the same time. There was some issue with slice reservation for these features and I was struggling with that a bit. When both features finally got enabled on this huge stack, few times per hour some AP-facing ports were going down for few seconds. And so huge wireless area was down for couple of minutes (AP reboot due to controller loss). With EXOS 30.x couple of slice management and Policy behavior improvements have been introduced (per release notes) so perhaps it could be better now. But still, CPU for X440-G2 as a master node may be some caveat and personally I recommend not more than 5 units in a stack, but in the end it will depend on what features you wish to use and what is the traffic pattern.

Hope that helps,

Tomasz

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Stefan_K_ · ‎05-06-2020

Also, if you want two power supplies the x450-g2 is the nicer solution. Plus they are modular.

Sometimes I had to use x440-g2 stacks - they were running fine, but had some minor issues with firmware upgrading.

PeterK · ‎05-05-2020

With policy I mean (one)policy framework (implemented from legacy enterasys) - not ACLs… There are differences in scaling and even in same functions, when I remember right.

Performance in stacks… In general the performance of G2 Devices is much better than G1.

Yes, I’ve experience with poor performance in the X440-G2 and larger stacks.

At least management functions are much slower (CLI, SNMP, and even Radius)...

FredrikB · ‎05-05-2020

Thanks for your reply, Peter!

There’s not much multicast other than uPNP and the like from Windows and Mac computers, and intra-client communication is very sparse. Also, the policy rule sets are limited. I still wonder why you say the X440-G2 is not suitable with bigger rule sets; aren’t those handled in hardware anyway? Are you referring to constrained ACL space or something else?

The main concern would be stacks. I do think stacks with more than two -48p units are on the wish-list , so that might be a reason to choose the X450-G2. Do you have personal experience with poor performance in the X440-G2 and larger stacks? I’ve seen problems with the old X450e and the old X440 (non-G2) where memory could get deleted and the CPU would not keep up.

/Fredrik

PeterK · ‎05-05-2020

my credentials for choosing X440G2 vs. X450...

You should use X450G2 instead of X440G2 when:

you have a lot of multicast traffic / applications
you want to create stacks with more than 2 units
you have a lot of client-client communication between stack-units
you have a bigger policy-rule set

FredrikB · ‎05-04-2020

Thanks Nikolay! We have also used these on the X440 (“G1”):

configure igmp snooping filters per-vlan

configure forwarding ipmc lookup-key group-vlan

That has improved the performance quite considerably, CPU-wise.

More thoughts, anyone?

/Fredrik

Extreme Networks

X440-G2 or X450-G2 as access switch?

X440-G2 or X450-G2 as access switch?