Question : Top of Rack Switches

Can anyone give me some pros/cons of top of rack switches and possibly some recommendations while installing them.

We are considering implementing them and I am not that familiar with them

Thanks
jculkincys

Answer : Top of Rack Switches

Ups.

No accessive cabling to the rack adding to its mobility (if serverroom is designed for that)
Quick overview if all the machines are linked (leds switch)
Overall Management of the rack is concentrated on that rack (quick idea of its setup)
Easy additional bandwith is added by simply replacing one switch or adding trunks to the backbone.
If that switch fails it is reduced to that rack being unreachable.


Downs and not the least.

Single Point of Failure (if no failover is used).
If the Uplink(s) get damaged it affects the whole rack
Might get messy while connecting (allot of accesive cabling) in the rack.
Losing 1U of space or more with Fail over configs.
Usually the top of the rack collects allot of heat, usually this is also where the switch is mounted (light equipment)
Distributed Patch Management. No limited to one place of "patching" wich adds quickly to the complexity of the infrastructure.

Mounting advice.

Make sure there is enough space for all the cables entering the switch sockets, seen many occations where doors strike cablebundles leading to the switch resulting sometimes in short loss of connection (cheap switch sockets). Might also be an indirect advice mounting it in the back with potential KDE switches etc. (see Dell racks, not much space in the front for cable bundling)

Ow well, you`ll manage ;)

Regards,

Chris