There are lots of switches out there, but most fall short in at least one, or more categories. IMHO, the closest was an outdoor switch with 2 SFP+ ports and 16 ethernet 24/48vdc ports, made by un-named company x. But there seemed to be some issue that caused a short and killed the switch under certain conditions.
Such a switch that supports IS-IS with Shortest Path Bridging would be the Holy Grail.
Hey @Sam_Beiler … just curious what scenario would you use the SPB for?
Tower switches and change to more of a bridged network? How’s yours set up now if you don’t mind me asking?
Currently all my towers are routed, and OSPF works well. But routing inherently introduces a small amount of latency, and OSPF convergence, while fast, will cause a VOIP phone call to be dropped. The current mindset is that a switched network is pure evil. However, I am finding some good benefits to switch network, including much faster route convergence. I am currently in the process of lab testing some of this.
As I understand it, IS-IS is a link state protocol, but configuring all the switch paths would be mind numbingly laborious (think static routing). So enter SPB (think OSPF) to dynamically manage all possible paths. SPB also has the ability to dynamically load balance and use multiple paths without breaking frames.
Full disclosure, I have not actually done this yet, but I am in the process.
SPB for enterprise networking is fantastic. The primary issue many sites have is that using RTSP makes for ‘two trees’ with a failover path that is disconnected until needed. Take for example a tree with an A>B>C>D>E>F>G>H>I~~>A topology representing the buildings or areas in a campus. There is a file server at F, E has to go E>D>C>B>A>I>H>G>F to get to it making a saturation point that is in fifo buffers all along the way because that E>F leg is stp blocking.
SPB does all thes ame work without this issue, still all layer2, not MPLS, VXLAN, tunneling, or anything like that and devices never hit an stp blocking path.
IS-IS for topology distribution and SPB for layer2 continuity and it’s a win. Heck, if you made an outdoor switch like that which is just at/af/bt PoE (or a mix) with a forced on option you might just attack the wISP industry with it…
Note that the ‘unnamed’ switch above is getting IS-IS soon, it’s in alpha right now. It’s primary issues is that it’s only 2 pair output, only 1G ports except the two SFP+ ports. I absolutely love the product but those are it’s shortcomings that it would be really nice to resolve for campus networking and wifi 6/6e/7 APs that need >1G.