[tech] Re: UCC uplink network upgrade

[Nick Bannon]

On Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 11:46:03AM +0800, David Cake wrote:
> 	We have approval for the network upgrade.

Wonderful!

> 	A UCC contribution of $1000 would be appreciated - please 
> could someone from UCC contact Thim Lee.

It's almost dissapointing not to pay more for better <grin>, but I
think the current plan is pretty much the sweet spot in value -
slightly cheaper, yet better specified than the first draft. Going
singlemode would have added about 50% to the project.

> 	I will contact GR Services today for them to begin work.
> 	We are going with Alloy switches.
> 	My only questions about the switches - would using 100MB 
> rather than Gigabit switching increase reliability/available of 
> replacement parts/media converters in case of failure significantly? 
> I'm worried more about reliability rather than the additional speed 
> gigabit will supply (given that fully switched 100MB is so big an 
> improvment anyway).

Well, that's the basic tradeoff of custom switch modules versus GBICs
or external media converters. They're much cheaper - to the point where
you can buy entire spare switches for less than the cost of the other
solutions. Still, we'll have three identical units and UCS may pick up
more, so it's not instantly vital.

Alloy would supply MTBF specs, I'm sure.

Thanks for your help,
Nick.

-- 
   Nick Bannon   | "I made this letter longer than usual because
nick-sig at rcpt.to | I lack the time to make it shorter." - Pascal