Linksys SGE2000P review

I got a couple of these to set up for a new site and thought I'd share my experience.

The good: Everyone that passed my desk stopped and looked at them and said how nice they looked. High praise for a piece of network equipment. However with their piano black front panel people just want to touch them and leave finger prints on them :-)

The stackable management is great. Hot plug add and subtract from the stack and it picks them up and you can manage them from one web interface on 1 IP address.

The bad: the link between them is not all that flash. You have two cables plugged into Gig ports 12 and 24 to make a ring. I've only ever seen one flash so I'm not sure you even get 2GB bandwidth between the switches. Disappointing.

You can't do teaming across switches. Then again these ain't no 3750s baby.

The ugly: they don't save the config between resets! You can copy the running config to a tftp file and then copy that to the startup config. Or log in using the serial console and copy the running to the start but I couldn't find it in the web interface.

Linksys support. I said bad things about Cisco previously. I think I've just been spoiled by them up til now. I emailed Linksys with a question on the stack link and bandwidth. Beyond the robot reply, no answer.

I called support and asked about the config not saving. I was booked a call back an hour later and that was 2 days ago.

So these are good switches. They sped up the network they were installed in but if you want the best still the Cisco 3750s are the ones to go with. They cost more but they are just nicer. If you want something to stack up were people will see them and speed and resiliancy isn't too import these may be your babies.

Update:  seems the config has to be saved manually now unlike previous Linksys gear.  So they do save the config as long as you tell it to but it's hidden away in the copy file menu rather than having a nice save config button on the main screen so you don't forget!

It's the putting right that counts...

First I should apologise. I was having a bad/sick/grumpy day and should not have been near a keyboard. I need to think carefully before lining someone up with both barrels. The folks at Ingram Micro (New Zealand) did not deserve to be slighted.

I didn't think anyone read the irate rantings of bloggers unless you were famous...

Anyway after speaking to the nice folks they have bent over backwards to put things right. They have been phenomenal given that I didn't say very nice things about them. So I need to thank them and hopefully the world will be a happier place. Plus I need to get someone some nice bottles of wine...

So thank you again guys for the help and the moral of the story is blogs are not diaries. No matter how obscure you think you are, someone is watching. Like network security really...

So I promise to shift plenty of UC boxes once I've done the training and the exams.

Where has Cisco gone wrong?

Following up on the stuff that pisses me off post comes this..

I recently contacted Ingram Micro, the New Zealand distributor for Cisco, to get a not for resale VoIP phone system to play with and get some hands on experience with.

After two weeks I have given up.  The Ingram staff and the Cisco account manager are useless.  They've either ignored my emails or palmed me off.  

Cisco used to be good stuff.  You paid a premium but got good product and great support.  These days it seems they still make reasonable product but the support has gone downhill.

I also have a TAC case open for what seems like a simple IOS software change which has been open for weeks.  I've run into problems with IOS erasing flash, firewall inspection problems with SMTP, FTP.  It's just all gone wrong.

Ah well looks like I'm back onto Asterisk to get my VoIP hands on. What's happening in the world?