[geeks] Cisco's new "smart" switches

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

On Jul 27, 2007, at 2:04 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:

> James Fogg wrote:
>>> Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
>>>> Seems like this switch might be a re-badged one of these.
>>> Cisco Express switches truly and honestly run IOS, but no
>>> access to the CLI.
>>
>> <Barbie> CLI is Hard! </Barbie>
>
> What exactly is the point of IOS without access to the CLI?

I can now categorically state that they are not ready for production.

Every switch and hub from time immemorial has allowed you to plug in  
a cable from another switch and then have the two switches bridge  
packets between them.

The CE 500 is too smart for that.  Instead, it scans all the ports on  
a continuous basis and decides what kind of device is on the other  
end, and sets up rules and BLOCKS TRAFFIC based on that decision.

Example: you have an IP Phone on a port, or you follow a wizard and  
say that you are going to be having IP Phones on all ports.

Then you add unplug an IP Phone and plug in an appropriately wired  
switch... what happens on every other switch in the frelling universe  
is that the two switches pass traffic to one another, learning MAC  
addresses as they go and not broadcasting traffic on one switch to  
the other.

So the switch lights up, you add your first ethernet device.  It works.

You have tested it, so now you can use that second switch, right?   
You plug in another device.  It doesn't work.

The CE 500 switch, only allows 1 MAC address to communicate if the  
port is an IP Phone port.  It sets up rules and barriers so that only  
1 MAC address can be passed along from that port.

So now you have to go into the cumbersome web GUI and say "this  
particular port is not an IP phone, it is a switch" and hope and pray  
that when you click OK it doesn't continue to complain about it and  
stop other traffic.

Except that this doesn't work.  It says it will make the change, but  
the GUI still sits there after a refresh and blinks the port white  
and red to indicate a problem.

Because there is no CLI to IOS, you can't tell if the port change  
went through but there is some other issue, or what.

Luckily there was a spare uplink port available, so I plugged it into  
that, at which point it worked.

Again:  Catatlyst Express 500 -- AVOID.

--Patrick