# Switch Recommendation



## Tristan (Feb 22, 2019)

Hi All! We are redoing all of our lighting in one of our spaces. I've got pretty much everything nailed down except for the switch. One hangup is deciding if we need a managed or unmanaged switch. From what I've gathered, a lot of people say to get an unmanaged switch so it won't interrupt the flow of data. But, some of the fixtures suggest getting a switch with IGM (Internet Group Management), which seems to come on managed switches. I'm not sure if this is entirely required. We will have a relatively small rig of Art-net and sACN hardware. Any suggestions for switches? I'd need a rackmount switch with at least 16 ports and POE. Also, some smaller portable switches.


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## SteveB (Feb 22, 2019)

Curious what fixtures suggest managed. 

I’d go unmanaged on the keep it simple theory, also for the smaller, make sure they do PoE.

As well, I assume you are comfortable with mixed ArtNet AND sACN ?, I wouldn’t be and would do all one or the other, but I dealing with ETC gear which is sACN anyway.


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## Rob (Feb 22, 2019)

Hi Tristan,
I'm Robert from Pathway Connectivity. We make the Via line of entertainment switches. Clearly we wouldn't go through the effort of designing and manufacturing switches if 'any old' switch would do. Our switches are consistently specified on Broadway, in the Rock touring market and on major events like the Academy Awards this weekend or the Super Bowl half time show for the past seven years. 

Often dead-dumb switches are not sufficient enough for today's entertainment protocols like Art-Net, sACN and Dante, so you end up using higher end switches from the likes of Cisco and those quite literally require you to got to school to learn how to manage them. Our switches were designed by us and we we understand what is needed in the theatre. In fact, we have multiple engineers on the ESTA Control Protocol Working Group and many of our names are on the standards you already use. Some of the reasons you want to specify an "Entertainment Class Switch" include:

Front Panel Management without a PC
Bandwidth monitor per port
easy VLAN setup
IGMP snooping and querier per-VLAN ensures efficient multi-cast packet routing
DHCP per VLAN
Dante-compliant QoS settings (simple on/off from front panel)

Art-Net Trap and Convert to eliminate network congestion caused by broadcast versions of Art-Net (you won't find this on any other switch)
EAPS Ring Protection (redundancy protecting you from a single cable point of failure)
Rapid Spanning Tree (prevents Ethernet loops when enthusiastic technicians plug in the spare cable)
Link Layer Discovery Protocol (what is plugged in where)
The other advantages Via has over any other commercial switch is that is doesn't say Cisco or Extreme Networks or Juniper on the front. This means your building's IT department will leave it alone. Via's are configured using Pathscape, the same software that manages Pathports and Vignette. That means one tool to manage the whole network, including RDM devices. 

Please have a look at our YouTube channel for a number of videos on Via's features, specifically an explanation of IGMP and a real-world example showing why it is useful.


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## gafftaper (Feb 22, 2019)

People love to try to go cheap on data distribution, but it's a terrible mistake. My only choice for any sort of data distribution is Pathway Connectivity or Doug Fleenor Design because they design their gear for our industry and understand what we need the gear to do. Yes you can save money and find something online for less and it may not matter 99% of the time. But someday the 1% of the time incident will happen and you'll either hate your life or never know it was going to happen because you invested in proper gear from the start. Data distribution is not the place to cut corners. 

Note: Pathway Connectivity and Doug Fleenor are both sponsors of CB so I am definitely a bit biased. @Rob a great guy, really knows his gear, and was a lot of help to me when I screwed up some of the settings in my nodes trying to reprogram them. @jfleenor and the Fleenor clan are some of my favorite people to hang out with at conventions and their gear is bulletproof. I don't think Fleenor makes a switch so their's no need to decide, buy a Pathway put in in your rack and forget that it exists and just let it do it's job.


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## jfleenor (Feb 22, 2019)

gafftaper said:


> I don't think Fleenor makes a switch so their's no need to decide, buy a Pathway put in in your rack and forget that it exists and just let it do it's job.



Correct, we don't make an Ethernet switch yet; just basic DMX ones. Pathway's is an excellent option.

However, if you do decide to use both sACN and ArtNet, keep in mind that we DO make an Ethernet to Ethernet converter: http://www.dfd.com/e2e.html Juuust in case it becomes necessary.

Have a great weekend!


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## MNicolai (Feb 22, 2019)

Managed is preferred. Data packets are unicast (point to point) or multicast (point to many). Most AV and lighting protocols use multicast because one source is sending the same data to many endpoints. There are other features too like QoS quality of service that prioritize expedient delivery of mission critical data over general internet traffic.

Unmanaged switches do not know how to handle multicast, so they take those packets and repeat them out to every port as broadcast (point to everyone), which can big down and hose your entire network.

Story goes at a Vegas casino someone accidentally patched the Cobranet network on an unmanaged switch into the house network. The multicast traffic became broadcast and the ensuing broadcast storm crippled the gaming, hotel WiFi, point of sale, and security systems.

In a small scale, isolated network, it’s unlikely you would see any issues, but as a matter of form you should treat your system backbone as a mission critical device. The unmanaged thing you buy for $30 may work well enough for now but could give you surprises when you least want them, and are generally more prone to individual port failures and power supply failures. One bad port can also take down an entire network.

Dante and ETC both recommend Cisco SG300’s, which have recently been transitioned over to the SG350 line. This is what you will see the most of out in the wild. If you don’t have much network management background, a Google adventure will yield step by step guides that are pretty digestible. Configuration shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes.

I don’t recommend specialty switches unless etherCon is a must. Usually if etherCon is a must, I stick an SG350 in a rack with a custom panel of etherCons and patch the switch to the panel internally of the rack.

In general for specialty “Entertainment” switches, you’ll pay 3-5x the price per port that you would otherwise. You cannot Amazon Prime next day ship a replacement. And you are at the mercy of a network R&D team who may understand what Dante, sACN, ArtNet, and AVB are, but have 1/10,000th of the R&D and development resources Cisco, Extreme Networks, or HP have. In general, it is an extra expense for which the average customer receives no tangible reward.

Ever want to get a good idea of how the R&D process isn’t the same for specialty switches, look at the firmware release notes for the Yamaha etherCon switches. They spent the first year or two of their product on the market publicly bug testing obviously egregious flaws in their firmware using your show as a guinea pig. First time I used them was the last time I’ll ever use them.

Similar story with Pakedge. Their sales pitch is that they make web management interfaces stupid simple for AV, and yes it was nice being able to call someone in support who understood Dante and Q-LAN, but for three times the price we had a few switches in installs across the country going tits up with hardware failures or unresolved network config issues that disappeared swapping out for Cisco.

There was another product I used a while back by Link, that was also 3x the price for them to take a Cisco SG300 PCB and stick it in their own chassis with lights and ethetcons on the face panel, load their own settings into, and get the UL listing for. You basically are paying for them to be a middle man — and again, there are times where a repackaged product like that is valuable but 97% of people will never benefit from that in any way beyond what they would get from a quality off the shelf product.

Want a 48 port specialty switch? Good luck finding one, and if you mix and match the 8-12-16 port specialty switches with a Cisco 48 port switch at the core of your system, good luck getting either manufacturer to help you troubleshoot why your multicast is falling apart at the transition between them.

By the way “Entertainment Class” mentioned above isn’t a thing. It describes a market those switches are intended for but does not exist as any industry standard or otherwise formal category of products or protocols.

Also, ethercon isn’t all its cracked up to be. It’s expensive, there are 3 versions in the wild right now each with its own quirks and incompatibilities, and the general wisdom used to be that you could always unscrew the shells on either end of you needed to shove an RJ45 into a non ethercon jack. Guess what? There are versions out there now where the pins are built out of a PCB board that fall out when you pull the shell off. Now if you want to use ethercon in a meaningful way, better have an inventory of ethercon-to-RJ45 in addition to your ethercon-to-ethercon cables.

None of this is to say that specialty switches or ethercon connectors have no useful applications, but as a design consultant I have gotten past the fad of using these niche products just because they’re purpose-built. Their cost eats into other goals I need to achieve and they add a sometimes unwelcome additional layer of complexity to projects, regardless of whatever “Oh, just set the dip switch for Dante and it’ll automatically configure everything for you” claims they may make.


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## BobHealey (Feb 22, 2019)

Managed. Managed all the way, and I mean truely managed with a serial port option, not "Smart" or web. (Web interfaces are ok, but the ones that are web only tend to be lower end) My day job is high performance super computing, not entertainment, but here are the things I look for:
1.) Throughput. Not just the bits, but packets per second too. 
2.) The ability to get the status every port without having to hike to the data center
3.) The ability to label the ports in the config so I don't have remember what is on port X
4.) The ability to see the hardware ID/MAC addresses of what's connected and if it matches what I'm expected.
5.) The ability to enable/disable without having to pull cables and potentially disturb adjecnt ports
6.) The ability to turn on and off POE on individual ports to power cycle remote devices.
7.) Seeing just what link errors are occuring where
8.) The ability to block unknown devices from connecting to certain/any ports.

I'm partial to Procurve (HP) based on historical luck and price/performance points. If you want really high end, Arista and Mellanox (200gbps anyone?). Nothing against Cisco other than its relatively higher price.


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## ChrisB_SanDiego (Feb 23, 2019)

I suggest un-managed switches at the board for a quick access tie-in for a touring rig to control our house and conventionals, or in a case where I need 2 nodes running next to each other. It's quick and works for a 2 port application. 2 universes seem to have no issues with an un-managed switch.

In a rack space, or install and you have the time, managed all the way. 

Un-managed will most likely work in your space, especially as you say its a smaller rig, but I would have a few questions prior to going un-managed for the primary network switch: 
What is the maximum amount of addresses you could imagine in you're space? What about in 5 years? 
If you are going with LED pixel tape, your network can get saturated fairly quick, and you will want an in line tester so you can see any issues. 
Is this only for the lighting network? If not, definitely managed with IGMP.
Do you use cheap knock off or no name fixtures with rj45 ports at the fixture? Some of these don't work as well as they promise... Being able to isolate the dmx that's going in to the fixture can fix funny issues.

Interesting, I didn't know Pathway made switches... my experience with Pathway gear has always been positive so I would give them a consideration, we have Dell PowerConnect 5524P's in both our lighting rig, video rig, and dante rig. We have been pretty happy with them. They were suggested by our ETC and 4 Wall rep during our install 7 years ago, and it's nice having only one gui to learn to configure all of our switches.



The network hardware should support the design of the protocol being passed through it, and it should be future proof for your system. sACN is a multicast protocol and multicasts via the IGMP Protocol.

Wayne Howell, inventor of Art-Net, wrote an article on this in the December 2018 edition of LSI, pg. 70
https://www.lsionline.com/magazine/digital



keep in mind he is talking about around 40 universes for the break. Not hard to hit if you use Aleda.B.Eyes or Pixel tape, etc. But this parameter count probably doesn't apply to most of us here. But even if the parameter count doesn't apply, don't globally dismiss the managed switch.


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## Ancient Engineer (Feb 25, 2019)

Our larger show (26 universes) used managed switches (Cisco) for lighting with fiber 'tween major nodes.

I generally prefer having control of the data, even if it takes a few minutes longer to setup initially...


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## Jay Ashworth (Feb 25, 2019)

I concur with Bob in recommending ProCurve switches -- they have the added advantage of a Full Lifetime warranty -- I've even had them overnight me a replacement for a 24 port switch I bought used for $25. They are *not* kidding.

That said, I think they've discontinued that line in favor of something newer.

They also have a web management interface, in addition to telnet/ssh and SNMP v2/3.

Great gear.


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## eadler (Feb 26, 2019)

Aruba (formerly HPe/HP) is great with their warranties and switches and pricing but I and others have had issues with their ability to handle multicast and IGMP (I'm not sure if they do it right and Cisco does it wrong or the other way around but everyone doing multicast seems to point to Cisco as better and some vendors won't even support configuring Aruba/HPe switches for use with their products while providing walkthroughs and support for Cisco).


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## TimMc (Feb 26, 2019)

eadler said:


> Aruba (formerly HPe/HP) is great with their warranties and switches and pricing but I and others have had issues with their ability to handle multicast and IGMP (I'm not sure if they do it right and Cisco does it wrong or the other way around but everyone doing multicast seems to point to Cisco as better and some vendors won't even support configuring Aruba/HPe switches for use with their products while providing walkthroughs and support for Cisco).



My use is Dante audio networking so my results may not pertinent, but Cisco does IGMP "right" as far as setting up unicast/multicast, primary/backup networks... even on their inexpensive managed switches like the SG-350-10P.

Is there an enchanced/expanded DMX-type protocol coming? For a relatively simple thing it eats up a huge amount of data infrastructure in its legacy form.


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## Rob (Feb 26, 2019)

TimMc said:


> Is there an enchanced/expanded DMX-type protocol coming?



E1.17 and E1.31 (Under *External Extensions *in that same topic)

From above:
Please have a look at our YouTube channel for a number of videos on Via's features, specifically an explanation of IGMP and a real-world example showing why it is useful.


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## eadler (Feb 27, 2019)

TimMc said:


> My use is Dante audio networking so my results may not pertinent, but Cisco does IGMP "right" as far as setting up unicast/multicast, primary/backup networks... even on their inexpensive managed switches like the SG-350-10P.


Exactly. We're an HPe/aruba house and I've got a Cisco WS-C3750G-PS on my bench right now for Dante/AES67 integration.


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## Lextech (Feb 27, 2019)

I'm using Cisco switches, different closed networks, for Dante and ETC Net 3. Audinate and ETC both recommended them. No config needed, worked right out of the box.


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## MediaMad (Feb 7, 2020)

Superb post... there's a lot to be said about wisdom vs marketing hype...



MNicolai said:


> Managed is preferred. Data packets are unicast (point to point) or multicast (point to many). Most AV and lighting protocols use multicast because one source is sending the same data to many endpoints. There are other features too like QoS quality of service that prioritize expedient delivery of mission critical data over general internet traffic.
> 
> Unmanaged switches do not know how to handle multicast, so they take those packets and repeat them out to every port as broadcast (point to everyone), which can big down and hose your entire network.
> 
> ...


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## DavidJones (Feb 9, 2020)

A L3 managed switch is the way to go. That being said, most people in entertainment don't have any clue what is going on inside of a network. The vast majority of networks I see on tours are just unmanaged switches. Usually, things just work. 20-30 universes maybe, and no problems with switches just flooding broadcast through the network. Now the Pathway and TMB stuff is nice. They work great and are easy to setup. They certainly have their limits but in the right application, they can save a lot of setup time and troubleshooting cost. Now If you are not a weekend warrior IT person who wants to dig into Cisco stuff, but you don't want to spend the money on Pathport or TMB, You might look at the Unifi Series from Ubiquity. It is targeted at Medium sizes businesses that probably won't have dedicated IT staff, but a more casual administrator can still have full control with an easy to use graphic UI.


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