A while ago we purchased some Dell PowerConnect 6248 L3 switches. I was hoping to get some Cisco L3 switches, but given the cost that was not an option. We got these for dirt cheap you might say.
In getting them setup though I found a few shortcoming.
- Multiple DHCP Relays or lack of. This should be fixed in firmware v3 sometime 2009
- vrrp ip address is not pingable. apparently this is according to the rfc for vrrp. Most vendors allow you to enable the pingability of the virtual ip though for troubleshooting. So far Dell does not.
- ACE entries for ACLs limited to 13. This IMHO is lame. You can only have 13 ACE for your ACLs. If you have some complex security requirements this thing isnt going to work.
- cannot enter descriptions for vlan interfaces.
Overall though I like the devices. You cannot beat the cost not HP, 3Com nothing comes close to how cheap these things are. So if you can live with the limitations it does have you get a really fast L3 switch for dirt cheap.
