P4000 and Extreme Networks Switches?

[Lefty]

Hello all,

I am in a planning and design phase for P4000 for a multi-site cluster and have some questions about the networking.

Anyone used Extreme Switches with P4000?

We have been recommeded Extreme x460.
http://www.extremenetworks.com/products/summit-x460.aspx

Anyone with experience regarding this? Please post!

Thanks

[Lefty]

Right... we are planning to use dedicated switches for iscsi traffic. 2 switches at each site for redundancy.

[Paul Hutchings]

I've not used them but have heard some very nice things about them (not specific to P4000) - I would be amazed if they weren't a great choice.

The only thing I would ask is whether you've a reason to be looking at such a high-end switch?

[Lefty]

Thanks Paul for your reply.

The Extreme x460 was initially recommended by a consultant, but we have yet to speak with an SE from Extreme. Perhaps a smaller model will be recommended.

According to HP P4000 tech pre-sale it is highly recommended with a switch with flow control and 768-1024 kb port buffer per port. Extreme uses a dynamic port buffer that is assigned on demand if I understood correctly.

AFAIK the x460 is roughly half the price from the HP-recommended Procurve E6600.


Any more suggestions, experiences or similar - please post! :)

Thanks

[Uwe Zessin]

I am currently working on a project with P4000 and DL380 G6/G7 servers split over two sites where the customer is providing 10 GbE Extreme switches (don't know the model though). Everything is working fine so far.

[Lefty]

If you have oppurtunity to ask what model they are using I would apprecieate it.

Also how they configured redundancy.