Re: [foxboro] Cisco switches vs Interesys
- From: Corey R Clingo <clingoc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:38:49 -0500
We got Enterasys switches with our V7 stuff. I cringed, because it was
relabeled Cabletron hardware (Enterasys acquired them, apparently) and we
had not had a blissful experience with the Cabletron switches in our
corporate IT environment. We had to take one apart and re-seat a memory
module to get it to work, but they have been fine after that for about a
year now.
On V7, they are nothing special; only a couple of configuration parameters
are changed from factory defaults. But V7 is essentially switched classic
nodebus; it is not doing rapid spanning tree, requiring sub-second
failover, and is not relying on the switches to route around network
faults; in short, V7 is not nearly as demanding on the switches as the
V8/mesh architecture will be. If you plan on going to V8 with these
switches, I would use what Foxboro recommends.
Another reason to go with Foxboro's anointed switches (though you may see
this as an argument for using switches you know and love :) is that it
appears that deep knowledge of how I/A networking works is not widespread
in Foxboro, and troubleshooting complexity (and finger-pointing) will be
lessened if you are using approved hardware. [Some of my lurking
colleagues came across this knowledge gap when troubleshooting some V6
nodebus problems recently. And since I'm still leery of connecting both
"sides" of my control network together, which is how the mesh is
configured, I've asked several Foxfolks how the mesh really works,
responds to certain failure modes, etc., and I still haven't gotten a
complete explanation. I'm sure someone knows, but I'm guessing they are
in some blue-lighted room deep beneath a hillside in FoxMass that requires
a retinal scan and body-cavity search to enter.]
On a side note, I've found this whole COTS thing to be a mixed bag, at
least in the DCS (higher-$$$) world. The hardware's cheaper, because they
take advantage of a Dell's or Enterasys' engineering and mass-production
of the hardware, but you don't really get much more choice, because of
this qualification issue. I acknowledge that a DCS is a pretty complex
and highly integrated system, but if the Rockwells of this world can run
on nearly any modern PC, I think the DCS vendors could do a little more in
that area.
Corey Clingo
BASF Corp.
"pop.gmail.com" <tjvandew@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: foxboro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
10/19/2005 09:15 AM
Please respond to foxboro
To: foxboro
cc:
Subject: Re: [foxboro] Cisco switches vs Interesys
Stan,
Foxboro and Enterasys are working together to make some of the
Enterasys switches work the way the MESH needs them to. They aren't
even qualifying all Enterasys switches, (only a small subset). I have
gathered that sub-second failover over of redundant modules and paths is
one of the key issues. Their will be very specific firmware and
settings in the switches and Foxboro has already warned us that there
will be no guarantees of functionality unless you use their version of
firmware and the settings they determine. In order for Cisco switches
to work on the MESH, Foxboro will also have to qualify the specific
Cisco switches you intend to use. When Foxboro first advertised the
MESH they hyped the use of COTS, (Commercial Off The Shelf), switches
but now that has changed to only the specific, (COTS), switches they
qualify;)
Duc told me that they asked users at the Houston UG meeting to submit
switches they wanted to see qualified so you should probably do that if
you want to use Cisco switches. We are making plans to use the
Enterasys switches they are qualifying because I've seen folks bitten
too many times in the past when they try to out-guess Foxboro's
intentions. When they get down to requiring specific NIC's with
specific firmware in order to communicate with their equipment, you
should know that the switches will be highly customized also.
In Foxboro's defense, they are trying to make things backward
compatible on a system that was designed in the mid 1980's while
utilizing the latest communication technology and that would be a tall
order in anyone's book.
Cheers,
Tom VandeWater
stan wrote:
> We are close to buying our second set of V7 hardware. On the first set
we
> let Foxboro talk us into Interesys switches. The corporate standard,
however
> is Cisco, and within our organization we certainly have more expertise
in
> supporting these.
>
> I'd like to hear from other users as to which direction they are going,
or
> are planing on going on this.
>
> Thanks.
>
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