Debate: Did I waste $4,000 on a managed switch upgrade or was it worth it for the VLAN tagging?

I dropped $4,000 on a full stack of managed switches last quarter for our office here in Denver, thinking the VLAN control would fix our traffic bottlenecks, but now I'm wondering if a simpler unmanaged setup with better cabling would have solved the same problems for way less money, what side do you come down on for a mid-sized network with about 200 users?

2 comments

2 Comments

riverknight23d agoMost Upvoted

Tbh I think you made the right call even if it stings a little right now. Better cabling would have helped some but it won't fix congestion caused by broadcast traffic or give you any real control over bandwidth hogs on the network. With 200 users VLAN tagging lets you separate departments or guest traffic so one person's bad habit doesn't take down the whole office. Unmanaged gear is basically a free for all and once someone plugs in a loop or a misconfigured device you're chasing ghosts. I've seen places try to cheap out and end up spending twice as much on troubleshooting and downtime. Your $4k buys peace of mind and actual visibility into what's happening on the wire.

karenf4022d ago

Spend all that money and still have to deal with VLAN config headaches and firmware updates every few months. That $4,000 could have bought a lot of high quality cable and a proper patch panel. With 200 users most traffic issues come from bad wiring or cheap cables anyway, not from lack of VLANs. Unmanaged switches are set and forget, no one has to babysit them or worry about someone fat fingering a config. And let's be real, most offices with that many users don't even need VLANs unless you're running something really specific. You basically paid $4,000 for a feature you might use once a year while the real problem was probably your cabling all along.