Networking hardware for PLC networks

General Discussion
1

I have a facility with some very old Cisco din rail mounted switches and OM1 fiber infrastructure that i am looking to upgrade. The switches are most located inside the PLC panels in electrical rooms, a pretty clean environment.

The switches would need have up to 12 ports, does anyone have switch like this they have used or would recommend?

I had IT spec what they would use, which is a cisco IE-3300-8P2S-E, which does look like a great piece of equipment, but they are pricy at $6,800 a piece and that’s with a discount.

2

There was a thread a while back where people seemed pretty pleased with MikroTik switches: Can anyone recommend a 48 port rack-mountable NAT Switch/Router? - #9 by pturmel

Not sure if they have what you need exactly, but it could be a starting point.

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3

Thanks @Kevin.Herron their products look promising. I am sure my 100% cisco shop IT would hate it, but they also quoted me over 100k for 9 switches, just hardware.

4

If you dont NEED/WANT brand new, maybe a refurbed one will work?

As an example:
£180 for Dell PowerEdge M1000e Mellanox M4001 - 16-QSFP+ 56Gbps Infiniband Switch

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5

We have a lot of joy with Moxa switches

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6

I’ll just leave this here for information only, as I am sure no one would ever expose their switches directly to the internet. :roll_eyes:

Trickbot is using MikroTik routers to ply its trade. Now we know why

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@SKA Thanks, that’s not a bad idea. I would preferer new preferably with support. I have a decent budget though paying nearly 1k a port just feels wrong

@jonathan.taylor Thanks, those look like exactly what I need!

8

Ubiquiti stuff is pretty good up to the mid-size networks and you can’t beat the prices.

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9

For panel mount switches we usually use Allen-Bradley's Stratix line, usually the 5700 series (they're just rebranded Cisco switches with dumbed-down firmware and AOPs), or Hischmann switches.

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10

@ryanjmclaughlin Thanks! I did consider ubiquity, but I couldn’t find all of the features that I would like to have. I didn’t include any of this in the OP, thought too much detail would scare people off, I would like stuff like hardwired power input, at least 2 SFP ports, redundant power, contact output.

@bmusson both of those look solid, i will dig in. Thank you!

11

+1 for these

Our IT is 100% Cisco as well, and these appease them as they can use their same tools to manage them if need be. They also work well with our 100% AB PLC hardware.

I might be a little biased.

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