Dell Powerconnect 2700 Vs. 2800 Series Switches

Both the Dell PowerConnect 2700 series and 2800 series switches are secure, fixed-port Gigabit switches. The Dell PowerConnect 2700 series was launched in the early 2000s, designed to deliver full wire-speed switching performance. Not long after the 2700 series, the 2800 series were released to support jumbo frames for networks that need to move large files across the network. They are both cost-effective solutions for small network environments, such as branch offices, schools and etc. However, it seems that it is hard to make a decision about purchasing these two series switches. This article would offer a satisfied solution to you and give a brief introduction to 2700 series and 2800 series switches.

Dell PowerConnect 2700 Series Switches

The Dell PowerConnect 2700 series switches are web-managed switches, the web-interface allows the user to easily manage the switch without learning CLI commands or integrating the switch into an SNMP-based application. These switches offer three port densities, including 8, 16, 24 and 48 Gigabit Ethernet 1 ports. Besides, the 2724 and 2748 have SFP slots in a combo port arrangement that deliver fiber capabilities. Auto MDI/MDIX and autonegotiation of speed, duplex mode and flow help deliver improved control over your network traffic. Totally, there are four models of 2700 series switch—Dell PowerConnect 2708, 2716, 2724, 2748. The main features of these switches are listed in the below:

  • There switches are prepared in advance for any elevated IT requirements.
  • They could eliminate the potential risks within the switch.
  • The 2700 series switches provide the flexibility to meet the requirement of various end users and applications environments.
  • They provide smartly balancing quality and the best prices.

dell-powerconnect-2716-overview

Figure1: Dell Powerconnect 2716 switch(Resource: www.DELL.com)

Dell PowerConnect 2800 Series Switches

As same as the 2700 Series Switch, Dell PowerConnect 2800 Series Switches are also web-managed Gigabit Ethernet switches. These switches offer four port densities, including 8, 16 , 24, and 48 port Gigabit Ethernet ports. In addition, the 2824 and 2848 have SFP slots in a combo port arrangement that deliver fiber capabilities (SFP transceivers optional). The PowerConnect 2800 family also supports jumbo frames for networks that need to move large files across the network. There are also four switch models of 2800 series switches—Dell PowerConnect 2808, 2816, 2824, and 2848. Main benefits of 2800 series switches are listed in the following.

  • Easy web access to the managed features provides a secure environment by offering password restricted access.
  • These switches offer enhanced security by allowing the user to specify which IP addresses have access to the switch.
  • The 2800 series switches support up to six link aggregation groups consisting of up to four ports per group.
  • Advanced cable diagnostics help improve network troubleshooting.

Dell 2800 series switch

Figure2: Dell 2800 Series Switches(Resource: www.DELL.com)

Dell 2700 Vs. 2800 Series switches

As being described, the Dell PowerConnect 2700 and 2800 series switches are nearly identical. But they still have some subtle differences in STP, management configuration, switching and price.

—Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

Compared to Dell PowerConnect 2700 series switches, 2800 series support more STP protocols and support 9000 jumbo frames (not not 9014, etc.). If you do a ping -f on the 2724 with jumbo frames enabled it will go to 5000, 5500, 6000, but not 9000 – they get fragmented at that point. Granted that is only useful for iSCSI traffic, and even then it’s not 100% necessary. And the 9014+ jumbo frames is of the preference.

—Management Configuration

Both 2700 and 2800 series switches are small office switches with minimal management. They all not have LACP. BootP/DHCP IP address management or Static IP address assignment are set within the 2800 series switches. The 2800 series switches have CLI and SNMP Command Subset while the 2700 series switches do not.

—Switching

The link aggregation of both two series switches are up to eight aggregated links and up to eight member ports per aggregated link (IEEE 802.3ad). But the Jumbo frame of 2700 series switches support up to 9000 Bytes (2716, 2724, and 2748). The 2800 series switches have LACP support (IEEE 802.3ad).

—Price

Compared to 2700 series switches, 2800 series switches are cheaper. Just take the same 16-port switch for a example, a new Dell 2816 switch only needs $56 while a new Dell 2716 switch costs $112 on eBay.

Conclusion

Through this article, we are clear about the Dell 2700 and 2800 series Gigabit Ethernet switches as well as their differences in STP, management configuration, switching and price. They all powerful switches with outstanding cost and power savings. You can select an appropriate one according to your need.

Some Common Fiber Optical Transceiver

Fiber optic transceiver including both transmitter and receiver in a single module is an important equipment transmitting and receiving data to support the normal operation of optical fiber data transmission system. The market currently offers a wide selection of fiber optic transceiver for use with different types of wire, fiber and wavelength and so on.

A group of companies joined together to agree on package standards also called multisource agreements (MSAs). The package standards help customers choose the best transceivers to their applications and make sure the they can use transceiver from multiple vendor without redesigning the board. In the following text, some common fiber optic transceivers according to package standards are introduced in details.

9-PIN&GBIC&SFF
9-Pin transceiver
 is also known as 1×9 optical transceiver. This transceiver has a single row of output pins at the rear of the device. The optical interface is usually ST or duplex SC receptacles. It is mainly used in fiber optic transceiver, optical switches, single/multi-mode converter as well as some industrial control applications.

GBIC transceiver, namely gigabit interface converter transceiver, is a plug-in interface designed to allow a pluggable interface for Gigabit Ethernet. It offers a standard, hot swappable electrical interface and can support a wide range of physical media from copper to long-wave single mode optical fiber, at lengths of hundreds of kilometers. However, this type of transceiver is gradually replaced by SFP transceiver which has more advantages.

SFF (small form-factor) transceiver is a compact optical transceiver used in optical communications for both telecommunication and data communications applications. Compare to 9-pin and GBIC transceivers, SFF transceivers is smaller allowing more ports in a given area. SFF transceivers have 10 or 20 I/O (input/output) pins that solder to the board.

SFP&SFP+&XFPSFP transceiver, small form-factor pluggable, small hot-pluggable optical module is a pluggable version of SFF transceiver and an upgraded version of the early GBIC module, with 10 I/O connections at the rear of the package. With smaller volume and higher integration, it is currently the most popular fiber optic transceiver.

SFP+ transceiver, also called enhanced SFP or SFP plus, with a higher transmission rate usually up to 8.5 G or 10 G, is a kind of optical transceiver module specified for 8Gbps/10Gbps/16Gbps fiber channel and 10Gigabit Ethernet applications.

XFP transceiver, 10Gigabit small form-factor pluggable transceiver, is the next generation SFP transceiver for 10Gbps application. This type of transceiver is hot-swappable and protocol-independent and is usually used to 10Gbps SONET/SDH, fiber channel, Gigabit Ethernet and other applications, but also of CWDM DWDM link.

X2&XENPAKXENPAK transceiver is a pluggable transceiver for 10Gbps applications, specifically 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The electrical interface is called XAUI, which provides four 2.5Gbps signals to the transmitter, which multiplexes or serialize them into a single 10Gbps signal to drive the source. It uses a 70-pin electrical connector. The optical interface is usually a duplex SC.

X2 transceiver is based on the XENPAK transceiver standards. It is shorter than XENPAK transceiver but uses same 70-position electrical and duplex SC interfaces. Unlike XENPAK, X2 devices mount on top of the board and are low enough to allow boards to be stacked side by side.

Address Common Questions When Using the Compatible Devices

When we begin to come into compatible products industry, there is always a problem that confused us, we are not sure if a device can be compatible with another device in different brands, even after they connected, did not know what would happen, well, this page I will explain the problem with the actual example.

For example, we need to connect Dell M6330 blades switches to a HP 2910al by fiber sfp+ over sr (50/125 um OM3 fiber from tyco). Then i ordered the SFP+ module for the 2910al (J9008A), two transceiver modules for the DEll switches (one each) and 4 x Dell 10gbase-sr sfp LC LC transceiver. And if all the connection between the M6220 done well, but when i plug the Dell transceiver into the switch there is no link up, what it means that if the HP switch refused to work with the Dell transceivers, but there is no event log notice of incompatibility, Then the questions is, if i can connect the HP switches to Dell by SFP+, or do you know if using non-HP brand SFP+ transceivers will work with the HP transceiver?

sfp

Well, in this issue, If you are indeed using optical transceivers in the switches, then no switch has any idea about what transceivers are in any other switch. Switches only know about the directly connected (plugged-in) transceivers. Now, as for the transceivers themselves. The J9008A is simply an expansion module. HP ProCurve switches will not accept non-HP ProCurve transceivers. So, if you have been trying to use the Dell SFP/SFP+ transceivers with the HP 2910al, that would be your problem. You are required to obtain HP ProCurve transceivers and use those.

sfp module

In general, we have to say that HP switches do not accept non-hp transceivers, such as Cisco, Dell, Juniper, Netgear and so on…You can’t plug a Dell transceiver in a ProCurve switch and expect it to work. Although there is a MSA (Multi Source Agreement) for SFP transceiver, in practice HP switches do not accept non-HP transceivers. Cisco equipment also can only utilize the Cisco SFP module and other brand module or equipment is not supported. If you just plug in the other module, Cisco port information will be displayed on the Unsupport or unknown. In simple terms, as for the unknown GBIC, Cisco device does not provide any warranty. In a word, when we choose the device, we just have to choose the same brands products, compatible products also can be used. Above the Figure shows that the popular compatible module in our Fiberstore.

Juniper Networks SFP Module EX-SFP-10GE-SR

SFP is with higher data rate and new industrial standards and it is with more compact size compared with the former 10G transceivers X2 and Xenpak, it has greater ability for density installations. With the rapid development of fiber optic technologies, 10G Ethernet products are coming to fit the increasing demand for bandwidth. SFP plus is the 10G fiber optic transceiver used for 10G Ethernet and other high speed transmissions. It is the upgraded version of the former SFP transceivers (MINI GBIC), This post will focus on Juniper Networks SFP module EX-SFP-10GE-SR.

Overview of Juniper SFP Modules

Juniper SFP transceivers are the most cost-effective standards-based optical modules fully compatible with Juniper Switches & Routers. The Juniper SFP modules are tested in-house prior to shipment to guarantee that they will arrive in perfect physical and working condition before delivered worldwide. Fiberstore provides Juniper compatible SFP transceivers which can be equivalent to EX-SFP-10GE-SR, EX-SFP-10GE-LR, SFPP-10GE-SR, EX-SFP-10GE-ER, etc. The following part will introduce Juniper EX-SFP-10GE-SR.

Juniper EX-SFP-10GE-SR Brief Information

This Juniper compliant EX-SFP-10GE-SR is a 10GBASE SR SFP module. The EX SFP 10GE SR transceiver module combines quality with low cost and gives you an ideal alternative except for the high price transceivers. The EX SFP 10GE SR is 100% compatible with all Juniper series switches and modules which support SFP transceivers. Here is a figure for you.

Juniper EX-SFP-10GE-SR

This SFP (mini-GBIC) transceiver module is designed for use with Juniper Networks network equipment and is equivalent to Juniper Networks part number EX-SFP-10GE-SR. This transceiver is built to meet or exceed the specifications of the OEM and to comply with Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) standards. This product is 100% functionally tested, and compatibility is guaranteed. The transceiver is hot-swappable input/output device which allows a 10 Gigabit Ethernet port to link with a fiber optic network. OEM specific configuration data is loaded on to the EEPROM of the transceiver at the factory, allowing this transceiver to initialize and perform identically to an OEM transceiver. This transceiver may be mixed and deployed with other OEM or third party transceivers and will deliver seamless network performance. A list of compatible network equipment is available on the Specs tab of this page.

EX-SFP-10GE-SR Key Features
  • Operating data rate up to 10.3Gbps
  • 850nm VCSEL Transmitter
  • TX Power :-6~-1dBm
  • Receiver Sensitivity:-11.1dBm
  • Distance up to 300m @50 / 125 um MMF
  • Single 3.3V Power supply and TTL Logic Interface
  • Duplex LC Connector Interface, Hot Pluggable
  • Compliant with MSA SFP+ Specification SFF-8431
  • Compliant with IEEE 802.3ae 10GBASE-SR/SW
  • Power Dissipation < 1.0W
  • Built-in Digital Diagnostic Function
EX-SFP-10GE-SR Applications
  • 10GBASE-SW at 9.953Gbps
  • 10GBASE-SR at 10.3125Gbps
  • Other Optical Link

Conclusion

FS.COM have a large quantity in stock transceivers and can ship in the Juniper EX SFP 10GE SR transceivers, you will find the cost effective modules here and you will find our Juniper EX-SFP-10GE-SR beyond your expectation, All of our module transceivers are tested in house prior to shipping to insure that they will arrive in perfect physical and working condition. Contact us today to save the time and cost by buying from original manufacturer directly. And now fiberstore is making a discount of 30% of the price about Juniper SFP.