I was just reading through another topic:
http://motorola.canopywireless.com/supp … php?t=4818
And there was a mention about the fact that a cheap switch/hub could affect latency and packet loss. I have a feeling that we are experiencing this in one of our links (connecting a backhaul to 2 AP’s). I see a huge difference in our latency and packet loss with increase in traffic on our network. That is: more traffic, more latency and more packet loss.
There is just a little consumer level Netgear switch in that link, and I am guessing it is just crapping out and not able to handle the traffic. Basically when they started this network 6 years ago, there were just a handful of subscribers and now it has grown to about 100 off of that link.
So I would like to upgrade this. So I am curious what recommendations people have for switches/hubs. One issue is the form factor. We would like to find smaller units, because in many of our link points we are not able to have a rack, and we are installing all our equipment in enclosure boxes, so using a full size, rackmount type device is not possible.
(On a related matter, I would assume that the CMM Micro is a good quality switch? because obviously it is supposed to handle 6 AP’s each able to handle 200 SM’s??)
Any suggestions are welcome.
Thank you.
For our backend we use Cisco 2900s, but for a simple remote AP with a low # of users, we’ll pick up a $50 netgear from best buy. It locks up like once or twice a year, and we have to go out and power cycle it.
tlsarles wrote: For our backend we use Cisco 2900s, but for a simple remote AP with a low # of users, we'll pick up a $50 netgear from best buy. It locks up like once or twice a year, and we have to go out and power cycle it.
Well, that's exactly what we have right now, a $50 Netgear switch, and it is connecting 2 AP's and a backhaul locally, but at the other end of the backhaul is a CMM with 5 AP's. so in effect it is passing through traffic for about 120 SM's and I really think that it is choking. :(
I had netgear/linksys type also at a few locations and have since changed them to cisco 2900, something that can be managed, nice to be able to see what is going on…
We just upgraded a CMMmicro to a Last Mile Gear CTM and MOXA EDS-408a Industrial Ethernet Switch. We saw an immediate noticeable improvement in latency, network flow, and problems with VoIP.
Last Mile Gear: http://www.lastmilegear.com/product.php … t2=Desktop
- built in oscillator so if GPS is lost it will hold GPS sync for up to a day.
- built in email notifications
- enclosed unit, easy field swap in needed
- lots more
MOXA 8 port Switch: http://www.moxa.com/product/eds-408405a.htm
- Built in bandwidth limiting on broadcast, multicast and flooded unicast
- Port based VLAN
- DiffServe
- QoS
- Dual power supply inputs.
- SNMP and onboard monitoring of traffic, unicast packets , non unicast packets, and errors.
- Error logging (with useful info such as Ethernet transition info)
- SysLog
- Mac Address tables
- email alerting onboard
- on board ping
- port mirroring
- On board relay for triggers
- Proprietary TurboRing for true failover redundancy
- 0 to 60C operation
We installed two 24V power supplies to the CTM, and jumped the power leads to the switch so both devices have redundant power supplies.
The form factor is the MOXA switch actually takes up less space than the Netgear and is designed to bake and freeze and keep working.
I have never been impressed with the CMMmicro. The cost of the CTM was 899 and the MOXA switch was 569 so the cost was a few hundred more than the CMMmicro and at least twice the performance.
For a dirt cheap switch I have been using the $20 Zonet switches for a couple of years. These seem to survive any temp I have put them in yet.
For a managed switch I have recently moved away from Cisco and begun using Zyxel. The ES-2108-G for a 9 port and the ES-2024A for a 24 port. Both can be rack mounted and the 9 port is in a small form factor for NEMA boxes. Amazon is the best place to get them so far. About $150 for the 9 port and $200 for the 24 port. Full web gui, telnet, ssh, snmp. They also have serial ports. The command interface is similar to cisco as well.
Jery,
Have you try minigps from fddisystems?
http://fddisystems.com/ateresearch/minigps2.htm
Those are sync on timing port. You still have to supply poe.
We had some cheap 5 port zyxel switch on our minor towers, but sometime happened that it was hanging-up (we had to do a power off-on), all the led were on, not blinking.
Some other cheap switch does not seem to have this problem fortunately but I can’t say about the performance.
Could Cisco 2900 be powered by 12V o lower voltage?
In our case we have a 12V power system (battery) for backup and 110-240V power would be a problem (we don’t want to use UPS on the towers).
Ciao
Massimo
I will agree with Jerry, You can see the performance change with the industrial switches.
I have a combination of switches. Cisco, CNet, Hirschmann and SixNet.
We only have one cheap CNet switch and it will be replaced soon, It’s used to switch two AP and one BH.
Cisco is the best, because it uses a standard spanning tree protocol for redundancy, plus we have 2 installation with 15+ links.
We installed several Hirschman because it has the Hiper Ring. Turns out that it will not work over a wireless network.
SixNet is great, it’s the one that comes inside the Moto CMM.
Besides the Switch management, they all have ESD protection to 6KV. This is one of the most important elements we need because most of the installation are in very hostile environment ( Up in mountains where high level of static and lightning exist).
I must say the Moxa specs are great.
Jerry, the Turbo Ring function on the Moxa’s, will it work over the air?
I personally segment every tower hop. I use Mikrotik for my routed segments.
This way for about $200 I can separate traffic and do QoS before it hits my backhauls.
On my more active towers I find an old Pentium II or III computer, load a gig of ram and drop in an 80gig hard drive and do caching and DNS at each tower. Overall cost on something like that is sub $100.
I use Web power switches for ping watchdogs on my AP’s and backhauls which run around $90 (webpowerswitch.com)
This has been very successful in keeping my backhauls uncongested.
I just built out an 11 tower system using a single 5.7 Advantage AP and SM’s on each tower for backhaul. Running 600 customers I’ve not come anywhere near the limit since I use segmentation and my latency from the farthest 900mhz point to my headend stays under 10ms even during peak times.
How would you go about routing traffic around your wirless network whilst keeping VLANs intact.
The VLANS function so well because the Canopy network is a bridge… that would be lost when you introduce routing.
Any clues?
EOIP tunnels.
jwcn wrote:
On my more active towers I find an old Pentium II or III computer, load a gig of ram and drop in an 80gig hard drive and do caching and DNS at each tower. Overall cost on something like that is sub $100.
Wouldn't this add a lot of battery backup requirement? I know at a lot of my standard sites let alone the remote ones there is no place to put a computer or UPS that big.
I have an enclosed rack at ever tower site…
ridnet wrote: I will agree with Jerry, You can see the performance change with the industrial switches.
SixNet is great, it's the one that comes inside the Moto CMM.
Are you sure CMMicro is using SixNet industrial switch? Why Jerry felt different?
CMM and CMMmicro are not the same thing.
CMM provided sync on the RJ11 and POE on a board on and used an external unmanaged industrial Ethernet switch. Pretty robust design but without management it was pretty limited. Also having sync on the RJ11 proved to be problematic in high RF environments.
The CMMmicro replaced the CMM. We gained switch management and sync on POE but gave up switching performance and reliability (IMO).
We have seen a 50% improvement in latency across that tower after upgrading as well as improved speeds
Sorry my mistake, yes he wrote CMM not CMMicro