(Crying, thinking about racks and racks and racks of AT&T 56k modems strapped to shelves above PM-2E-30s…)
The early 90s were a dangerous place, man. -George Sent from my iPhone > On Sep 24, 2021, at 8:05 PM, Wayne Bouchard <w...@typo.org> wrote: > > Didn't require any additional time at all when equipment wasn't bulky > enough to need rails in the first place.... > > > I've never been happy about that change. > > >> On Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 09:37:58AM -0700, Andrey Khomyakov wrote: >> Hi folks, >> Happy Friday! >> >> Would you, please, share your thoughts on the following matter? >> >> Back some 5 years ago we pulled the trigger and started phasing out Cisco >> and Juniper switching products out of our data centers (reasons for that >> are not quite relevant to the topic). We selected Dell switches in part due >> to Dell using "quick rails'' (sometimes known as speed rails or toolless >> rails). This is where both the switch side rail and the rack side rail >> just snap in, thus not requiring a screwdriver and hands of the size no >> bigger than a hamster paw to hold those stupid proprietary screws (lookin >> at your, cisco) to attach those rails. >> We went from taking 16hrs to build a row of compute (from just network >> equipment racking pov) to maybe 1hr... (we estimated that on average it >> took us 30 min to rack a switch from cut open the box with Juniper switches >> to 5 min with Dell switches) >> Interesting tidbit is that we actually used to manufacture custom rails for >> our Juniper EX4500 switches so the switch can be actually inserted from the >> back of the rack (you know, where most of your server ports are...) and not >> be blocked by the zero-U PDUs and all the cabling in the rack. Stock rails >> didn't work at all for us unless we used wider racks, which then, in turn, >> reduced floor capacity. >> >> As far as I know, Dell is the only switch vendor doing toolless rails so >> it's a bit of a hardware lock-in from that point of view. >> >> *So ultimately my question to you all is how much do you care about the >> speed of racking and unracking equipment and do you tell your suppliers >> that you care? How much does the time it takes to install or replace a >> switch impact you?* >> >> I was having a conversation with a vendor and was pushing hard on the fact >> that their switches will end up being actually costlier for me long term >> just because my switch replacement time quadruples at least, thus requiring >> me to staff more remote hands. Am I overthinking this and artificially >> limiting myself by excluding vendors who don't ship with toolless rails >> (which is all of them now except Dell)? >> >> Thanks for your time in advance! >> --Andrey > > --- > Wayne Bouchard > w...@typo.org > Network Dude > http://www.typo.org/~web/