[tech] New UWA network interface options
David Adam
zanchey at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au
Mon Oct 17 21:09:13 WST 2011
UWA is getting an exciting new core network, which promises to be
highly-buzzword compliant. UCC is one of the test groups for the new core
network, mostly because apparently we're one of the few groups on campus
doing actual service over IPv6.
To interface with the new network (which will be gigabit fibre to the
Cameron Hall comms room), we need to upgrade our current uplink equipment
in the Cameron Hall comms room, which is currently simply a 100mbit fibre
convertor.
There are two options immediately available:
- Install sesame, a Cisco Catalyst 3508G XL donated by [AHC] and
refurbished by me; this has 8 GBIC slots and is currently configured for
dual 1000baseLX (single-mode fibre) and 1000baseTX (copper).
- Install palm, a Cisco Catalyst 2948G-GE-TX with 48 10/100/1000baseTX
ports and 4 SFP slots (the Uni will lend us SFPs on a long-term basis).
The problem with the first option, which I discovered with a trill of gay
laughter after having spent many hours trying to get it working, is that
you can't connected any 100 megabit devices to a copper GBIC. However, I'm
not convinced that our uplink copper cable will support gigabit traffic.
Also I will ask the club for $50 to recoup part of the cost of new fans
and GBICs. [*]
The problem with the second option is that it takes what is currently our
LAN switch out of commission and wastes 44 perfectly good copper ports.
However, with the new giant Cisco 4507R installed in the rack, we might be
migrating off coconut (same model as palm) sometime soon anyway, which
would negate this.
Alternatively, if we can talk [AHC] into selling or donating the Cisco
2948G living in the machine room (which has 48 10/100 ports but two GBIC
slots), we could use that if our uplink doesn't support Gigabit speeds.
Opinions and other alternatives welcome. UWA IS (nee ITS nee UCS) has
stipulated against the use of media converters and is very keen to have
everything that interfaces with the core network from the Cisco line.
Replacing the uplink copper to the Cameron Hall comms room is apparently
prohibitively expensive.
David Adam
UCC Wheel Member
zanchey at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au
[*]: it also doesn't support PAgP/LACP or load-balancing over aggregation
groups using anything other than level 2 addresses. We only have two level
2 address doing any real work on that link, but that's largely irrelevant
because our bottleneck is the piece of copper between the Cameron Hall
comms room and the UCC machine room.
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