Hey, Alta Labs fans! We would love to hear your thoughts on 48 port switches. We are working on designing our first model right now and would love your input on what need for the majority of your projects. Please feel free to share any feedback you feel pertinent. If you could include answers to the following questions for us as well, that would be very helpful:
How many 10Gbps ports do you need on a 48 port switch? Please provide any combination of RJ45 and SFP+ quantities.
Are four SFP+ cages sufficient for your projects? Or do you need SFP28?
What is more important to you in a 48 port switch? Price point, or having each port PoE enabled?
Assuming each RJ45 Port supports POE++, what is your ideal PoE budget for the entire chassis?
What is more important to you in a 48 port switch? Price point, or having a secondary/redundant power supply built in?
Hi Chase! So happy to you see you all building more Alta devices for us IT installers to be able to install on many networks! Can’t wait to see the routers coming too…
4 - 10G SFP+ ports
SFP+ is fine for my projects
Huge for me to have ALL POE ports enabled (Would LOVE that on all your 8, 16 and 24 port models too)
$1200-$1500 range
Price point more important for my small to medium sized businesses
Yes, definitely at least 4 SFP+ ports.
If SFP28 does not increase the price enormously, these would of course be future-proof.
PoE+ available on all RJ45 ports would be important.
750 watts would be nice
A second power supply is not expected in this device class.
@jlab Unfortunately, you won’t be able to cool 750 watts quietly.
Please make the entire switch have Poe. When I put a switch in I want to cable down from my patch panel to the closest port. Keeps my cable looking clean. Minnium budget of 500W. If you do a 750 could you put some Poe++ ports on it. 4 SFP+ ports. I dont believe sfp alone is a good investment or design in 2023 on A 48 port switch. Secondary psu would be nice but isn’t a deal breaker. A 48 port should have fans for cooling if needed. This isn’t going in an office or bedroom but in a data closet.
I see some nice input here already, but also a few missing ideas.
If you are going to offer a very small switch with only 10G+ ports, which could be used instead of having it integrated into the 48 port switch, as an additional aggregation switch, I then wouldn’t need 10G RJ45 ports in the 48p switch. In terms of SFP, 2/4 SFP+ are enough, but more on that on 2.
Yes, 4 SFP+ cages should be enough if thats whats possible. If you somehow find a way to have 4 SFP+ and one SFP28 that only works if none or only one of the SFP+ are in use, to save on chipset ports, then I’d prefer that over a bigger chipset at potentially much higher cost. Depends on the additional cost for an independed SFP28, but if it’s possible to easily assign three or all four of the SFP+ ports together with the SFP28 cage, as a multi personality port, then that would currently be my favorite. Technically that’s doable, it’s just a question of how fare along you are in your PCB development, to even be able to incorporate something like that. As @jtv-weimar said, that would indeed be future-proof.
Hallo jtv
As everyone else has said so far: All port PoE, mostly because of flexibility and better way to wire cables in the rack. It’s anoying with the new UI switches to only have 32 PoE ports for the better priced switches. Good prices too though?
Realistically, no one is going to have 15,6W average port consumption across all ports, or am I missing something? What are you using your switches for guys??? Not considering losses, that would mean 30x AP6 Pro or 37x AP6 all at max rated consumption On one switch… Or rather on multiple switches, because if you have a setup with 30 APs, you’re probably going to need quite some more than just 48 in total, no? Anyway, that does not reflect my installs, as my patch panels are sorted by end location, not by usage/device type and there are obviously always non-PoE devices in between somewhere. They then end up all over all switches in the racks, so that PoE devices are usually almost evenly distributed. 500W is fine, having tworeplaceable PSUs would be the logic way though, especially for those that actually need a dual=redundant 750W switch. But I digress to the point 5.
IMO it is crucial to have a replaceable PSU for a reason every larger installer has faced with the big U switches or routers at least once, or in my case very very many times: They fail inevitably. Either you put way more money than usual in higher quality components (not just the caps, but those too), which is very unusual and probably not going to happen. Also, repairability and all that, it’s just easier to replace a PSU if it’s modular in the first place. And concerning the price point: just ship it with one PSU, a second empty slot costs really not much more at all. Or maybe have a simple DC plug, not a barrel jack obviously. I mean 2x3 or 2x4 pins for example like Cisco had on some of their routers, to possibly allow for either 48-60V + 5V/24V dual voltage or so, or at least to pipe 15A at 48-60V into it safely by having multiple pins. I have not had my hands on one of your devices, so I have no idea how you design them internally to recommend the right plug, but I think you understand what I mean.
If you do, you are going to be using Enterprise gear with dual hot swapable PSU’s
I would not say this is an enterprise-feature by any means. Having external/modular PSUs sure costs a bit more, as every SKU costs x and the required PSU enclosure+more complex case design by having slots+locking mechanism, but overall much less than having to throw the switch away, because you can’t get a compatible internal replacement PSU yet again. To me and my customers, that would absolutely be worth it and I speak from involuntary experience in that area
@rutman286 mentioned offering a range several times, but that costs you much more, because you’d need to produce different versions, and we customers gain nothing from that in the end. Volume is key. So my approach would be a single SKU to keep your prices low and then offer modular accessories or PSUs, that would be compatible across your switch line, to get PSU volume up as well. 120W, 240W, 480W, 720W for example if I take your current switches as a baseline. Designing boards to have thicker traces to allow for a higher total consumption costs nothing, what matters is how the boards are populated. So that way you could offer a competitive dual 720W capable switch for those who want it and otherwise a 48 port 480W single PSU switch without breaking SMB pockets while keeping margins
1/2. 4x SFP+ usually suffices. We usually see these larger switches deployed in networks with many IP phones or desktops which don’t really justify SFP28 at this stage.
3. It’s a mix of both. Some people want a cheaper switch without all ports being PoE enabled, some want all ports PoE enabled for convenience. I think you’ll find you can’t keep everyone happy with networking product releases haha. There’s always gonna be someone who’ll say “it’s nice, but it’d be good if it did…”.
4. 500W should be fine for most deployments.
5. Redundant power supply would be useful - either pre-installed or hot-swappable.
Are four SFP+ cages sufficient for your projects? Or do you need SFP28? im not a user of sfp+
What is more important to you in a 48 port switch?
having each port PoE enabled? POE++ and POE24v enabled by a warning stating that you are turning on poe24V
Assuming each RJ45 Port supports POE++, what is your ideal PoE budget for the entire chassis? 500watt is what i have in my current 24 port switch not sure if its viable for 48 port switch would be ideal and match a switch i was looking at
What is more important to you in a 48 port switch? Price point, POE++/24V, Noctua fans for silent running
i have swapped in my current system,seems to run fine
would like to see fan blows from front to back similar to server equiptment (hope this part make sense)
with 48 Port switches its ideal to have SFP+ Cages on them. in my experience not having a an SFP+ Cage on a port with 48 copper ports just seems silly.
On one switch… Or rather on multiple switches, because if you have a setup with 30 APs, you’re probably going to need quite some more than just 48 in total, no? Anyway, that does not reflect my installs, as my patch panels are sorted by end location, not by usage/device type and there are obviously always non-PoE devices in between somewhere. They then end up all over all switches in the racks, so that PoE devices are usually almost evenly distributed. 500W is fine, having tworeplaceable PSUs would be the logic way though, especially for those that actually need a dual=redundant 750W switch. But I digress to the point 5.
I’ll keep my answers short and sweet.