Hi Simon,

> We’re looking at the Dell S4810-ON and S3048-ON.
>
We've recently done (doing the 2nd phase now) a reasonable size deployment
of ON switches, specifically S4048-ON. We tested Dell OS as well because
Dell gave us the switches for POC with their OS, our target was Cumulus so
we didn't test it very extensively. But almost everything is there in Dell
OS what you need a l3 switch. Cisco like CLI as well, if your tech team is
afraid of linux CLI (cumulus) or automation (ansible).

> *S4810 Use case*
>
> -          OSPF to upstream L3 core and downstream VM firewalls
>
> -          10Gb to VMWare hosts
>
> -          Multi-chassis lags to VMWare hosts
>
> -          A few hundred customer VLANs
>
Cumulus has quagga so you can run OSPF, BGP and RIP (please don't).
Tested MLAG with cisco, had some issues with Juniper EX but then didn't get
much time to test that (still in todo list).

> *S3048 Use case*
>
> -          OOB/iDrac access
>
> -          PVLANs for iDrac network
>
I'm pretty sure you can use it in this way but I haven't tried it.

> Specific questions we have:
>
> -          We’re trying to decide between FTOS/DNOS and Cumulus as the OS
> on the switches. They seem equally capable right now. Does anyone have any
> relevant experience they can share?
>
If you want to scale then go for Cumulus, its just linux (debian) with some
tweaks here and there, they have recently announced there 3.0 version
(doing a beta test these days) and few other wrappers are in the pipe line
which are awesome and gives you flexibility and ease to configure from CLI
as well. But as I said if you want to scale you don't need CLI, use
automation.. we are using Ansible (still at beginner level though) but it
is cool.

> -          Does FTOS/DNOS usually come with the switches or is it
> licensed separately? This is unclear on the Dell site.
>
Dell can provide that pre-installed. But installing any NOS is super simple
via ONIE.

> -          Should we be considering anything else?
>
Yes, Mellanox.

> Thanks in advance :)
>
If you need more information you can hit me off-list.

Disclaimer: I don't work for any of the vendor I've mentioned above.

> --
Best Wishes,

Aftab A. Siddiqui

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