<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; CHARSET=UTF-8"> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="GtkHTML/3.3.2"> </HEAD> <BODY> On Tue, 2005-10-04 at 19:31 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> On Tue, 2005-10-04 at 17:53, Terrell Prudé, Jr. wrote: > If you choose to go with this switch, also make sure, before you do, > that it *fully* supports GVRP. This is a protocol that allows the > propagation of VLAN information across multiple switches; think of it > as the open version of Cisco's proprietary VTP. If you don't have > either GVRP or VTP, then you're looking at manually configuring VLANs > across all your switching architecture. Since all of my schools run > multiple VLANs with at least ten switches per school (our secondary > schools now have over 100 switches!), not having this feature is a > major problem for us. That's the chief reason we went with Cisco > instead of Amer.com; a year ago, we actually were considering the > latter. However, if you're dealing with just three to five switches, > then it may not be an issue. I'll telnet to 100 switches and paste in your list of vlans for a lot less than the Cisco switches cost. Unless you change them all the time you've saved a couple of minutes per switch. In fact I do it that way even on Ciscos because I've always been afraid that someone would put a switch from the lab on the main net and it would decide to become the master and tell the others about the wrong vlans. </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> If you're talking about one site, then that may work. But do you have the time to do it for 241 sites (average 30 switches each), along with all your other duties? :-) Also, that assumes that your Cisco alternative actually supports telnetting or SSH'ing in. I may be wrong, but it doesn't look like those Netgears support a command-line interface, though the Amer.com switches do. No, I must still maintain that GVRP or something equivalent is really a *major* help when you're managing a larger network. Also, since we're adding capabilities to our networks every year (security systems, secured wireless, etc.), we do add VLANs regularly. We're doing it right now, actually. That said, I agree that Cisco switches are horridly expensive, which is why we were considering an alternative (are you listening, Mark Wilhelm? :-) ). If Amer.com had supported GVRP, then we'd have been all over it. But our network is just too big to do it all manually like that. --TP </BODY> </HTML>