Mailing List Archive: NANOG: users

OT: GBIC compatibility and pricing (was Managed, cheap, DC power switches)

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jra at baylink

Jul 17, 2008, 1:31 PM

Post #1 of 4 (202 views)
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OT: GBIC compatibility and pricing (was Managed, cheap, DC power switches)

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 01:16:09PM -0700, Seth Mattinen wrote:
> Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> >For what it's worth, I gave the sales rep what-for about the price, and
> >he gave it back to me, telling me that ProCurve switches will only
> >accept ProCurve(-compatible) SFP GBICs, which cost more, both because
> >they're compatible, and because they're SFP.
>
> Recent ProCurve switches only accept "rev B" modules; I have a new-ish
> switch that won't accept a pile of Finisar optics that did work in older
> HP switches. I don't know what the difference between "rev B" and older
> ones are, though.

Specifically, that rep (Bill Billings) told me that a *firware upgrade*
broke compatibility with the old GBICs, which *originally* worked, and
he ended up eating nearly 300 of them at one point.

But we're probably off topic now. :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra[at]baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

Those who cast the vote decide nothing.
Those who count the vote decide everything.
-- (Josef Stalin)

sdalberg at marchex

Jul 17, 2008, 3:15 PM

Post #2 of 4 (187 views)
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RE: GBIC compatibility and pricing (was Managed, cheap, DC power switches) [In reply to]

This reason is twofold, one is Resellers were just buying whatever cheap
gbics they could and bundling them with Procurve switches (I'm sure this
happens to other vendors too). Thus most of the profitable parts of
switch sales were being eroded by the resellers.

The other is that Procurve offers a lifetime warranty on most (possibly
all) of their products, including gbics I believe, thus the premium. I
believe you can just RMA a Procurve GBIC, and they will send you a new
one, no receipts, no worries, no expiration, no service contract.

He shouldn't have to eat 300 gbics unless he bought non-Procurve ones to
begin with. HP should be able to exchange/reprogram them if they were
HP Gbics.

Steve

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jay R. Ashworth [mailto:jra[at]baylink.com]
> Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 1:32 PM
> To: nanog[at]nanog.org
> Subject: OT: GBIC compatibility and pricing (was Managed, cheap,DC
power switches)
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 01:16:09PM -0700, Seth Mattinen wrote:
> > Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> > >For what it's worth, I gave the sales rep what-for about the price,
and
> > >he gave it back to me, telling me that Procurve switches will only
> > >accept Procurve(-compatible) SFP GBICs, which cost more, both
because
> > >they're compatible, and because they're SFP.
> >
> > Recent Procurve switches only accept "rev B" modules; I have a
new-ish
> > switch that won't accept a pile of Finisar optics that did work in
older
> > HP switches. I don't know what the difference between "rev B" and
older
> > ones are, though.
>
> Specifically, that rep (Bill Billings) told me that a *firware
upgrade*
> broke compatibility with the old GBICs, which *originally* worked, and
> he ended up eating nearly 300 of them at one point.
>
> But we're probably off topic now. :-)
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth Baylink
jra[at]baylink.com
> Designer The Things I Think
RFC 2100
> Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com
'87 e24
> St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727
647 1274
>
> Those who cast the vote decide nothing.
> Those who count the vote decide everything.
> -- (Josef Stalin)

oberman at es

Jul 17, 2008, 5:06 PM

Post #3 of 4 (184 views)
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Re: GBIC compatibility and pricing (was Managed, cheap, DC power switches) [In reply to]

> Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:15:45 -0700
> From: "Steve Dalberg" <sdalberg[at]marchex.com>
>
> This reason is twofold, one is Resellers were just buying whatever cheap
> gbics they could and bundling them with Procurve switches (I'm sure this
> happens to other vendors too). Thus most of the profitable parts of
> switch sales were being eroded by the resellers.
>
> The other is that Procurve offers a lifetime warranty on most (possibly
> all) of their products, including gbics I believe, thus the premium. I
> believe you can just RMA a Procurve GBIC, and they will send you a new
> one, no receipts, no worries, no expiration, no service contract.
>
> He shouldn't have to eat 300 gbics unless he bought non-Procurve ones to
> begin with. HP should be able to exchange/reprogram them if they were
> HP Gbics.

The problem was that earlier code revs would accept 3rd party
optics. Buying the optics from the manufacturer rather than from HP
saved a lot of money and was a common practice. Then the code was
upgraded to prohibit non-HP branded optics. This was a non-reversable
upgrade and, for the folks who had bought their own optics, they had
dead boxes and had to buy HP optics to get them back into service. Quite
a few folks were a bit upset about this.

While HP can make whatever claims they want as to why this was a benefit
to the consumer, it was clear done to benefit the HP bottom line and the
consumer was not taken into consideration. If you had HP optics, no
exchange was needed.

If you compare identical optics that are branded by the manufacturer
vs. those branded Cisco or HP, you will notice a 'small' mark-up on the
re-marked units. Maybe a few hundred percent.
--
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman[at]es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4 EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751

jra at baylink

Jul 18, 2008, 8:29 AM

Post #4 of 4 (169 views)
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Re: OT: GBIC compatibility and pricing (was Managed, cheap, DC power switches) [In reply to]

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 04:31:44PM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> Specifically, that rep (Bill Billings) told me that a *firware upgrade*
> broke compatibility with the old GBICs, which *originally* worked, and
> he ended up eating nearly 300 of them at one point.

On a related topic, I walked the SNMP on the switch, and I don't see a
way to read the SFF8472 DOM parameters out; anyone got a pointer?

Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra[at]baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

Those who cast the vote decide nothing.
Those who count the vote decide everything.
-- (Josef Stalin)

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