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I have a small user base of about 20 people on at a time and spiking up to about 80 people during peak times. Most people (80+%) are connected over our Aruba managed wireless system. We have a Windows Domain. We have 3 24-Port switches all connecting back to a central 48-port switch where additional access ports, firewall, servers, and wireless controller all centrally connect back to. It's a flat network with dumb switches.

I'm in the process of upgrading our infrastructure. Cisco pricing for switches is pretty high for us so I've been looking at HP Procurves which seem to be within our budget range. I want to eventually make use of 802.1x, SNMP, QoS for possible VOIP upgrades, VLAN to separate guest VLAN from authenticated users, and other more advanced features. PoE would be nice but that's probably too expensive for us.

I was thinking of having our core switch be a Procurve 2610 and the rest of our switches that centrally connect to it be Procurve 2510s. A true and full blown level 3 switch is way out of our price range but a 2610 seems to be good enough for us. The 2610 does static routing which ought to be good enough for us but I'm in unfamiliar territory so I'm looking for any gotchas. Also, should all the switches be 2610s or just the core switch? Do I even need the 2610, can I just go with all 2510s? I'm new to VLANs as well so I'm not sure what it is I need but I would like an affordable infrastructure that won't need replacing 2-3 years down the line because I choose a product that was lacking.

EDIT: I just noticed there's a Procurve 2615 that seems to support additional features like ACL. Would this make a good core switch with future expandability in mind?

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We use Procurve Switches in our network. They are great. We used to use cisco but maintenance was too expensive. Easy interface to use. We use a 5406 as our core and various switches
I dont believe that you can use ACL's on a 2600 series. and if you ever want to monitor sflow traffic 2510 wont allow it.
The 2600 and 2510 both support up to 256 vlans. However I dont believe that you can use either 2600 or 2500 for a core if you want to use ACL's.

I just did an ip access-list and the 2600 and the 2500 dont support this command You may have to go a 3500 which can get in a 24 port and a 48 port. 3500 has option for ACL's for sure just checked it. 3500 also does POE. 2600 also does POE but 2500 does not.

JohnyV
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  • How about a 2615 as our core switch? Unfortunately, the 3500 is significantly more expensive. –  Jun 03 '10 at 12:36
  • I believe 2615 (we dont have any) but they are L2 and L3 with Lite Feature set. I dont know how lite the feature set is but Like chris said below I would go for L3 L4 for core then you can go go cheaper at the edge if you like. – JohnyV Jun 03 '10 at 21:52
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Go with L3 for core switching. L2 are good for specific purposes, but they're little more than unmanaged switches. L3 (or L4) will allow routing, ACLs on many models, and more flexible networking solutions.

Chris S
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