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MAX & Ethernet switch

Hi

I would like to know if I can use any switch with MAX server or if I have to use the AMX NXA-ENET24 switch ?

Tanks

Comments

  • Ethernet Switch

    You should be able to use any Managed Ethernet Gigabit Switch. I stress the Managed part. Do not go to Best Buy and purchase a $59.00 Gigabit Switch, you will surely have problems. Ive used the Linksys SRW2016 and it has worked just fine.
  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    I'm using an managed Netgear switch without any problem. I wanted to use AMX's offering, but sales balked at the price.

    The main thing with MAX is keeping the media stream network seperate from the control network. And I don't mean just subnetted, you have to partition your switch so it's completely seperate. You could get away with a regular switch if you had a completely discrete network for the media stream too.
  • viningvining Posts: 4,368
    Dave wrote:
    And I don't mean just subnetted, you have to partition your switch so it's completely seperate.

    You mean putting it on its own VLAN (Virtual LAN) with in the managed switch?

    You could as Dave eluded to put it on it's own network with the MAX network set up on its own router and standard Giga-switch.

    I've never used the MAX but I assume it has a sepreate LAN connection for control and DVD/CD title look ups over the internet and a different port for streaming.
  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    Yes, that's what I meant, putting it on it's own VLAN. And yes again, the server has two NIC's, one for control, and one for the media stream. They are set to seperate subnets by default; I only changed the control subnet to match the rest of my installation and left the media subnet strictly alone.
  • DenisDenis Posts: 163
    Thanks

    Thanks a lot !
  • ondrovicondrovic Posts: 217
    Priority Recommendations

    Can anyone give some recmmendations about how to setup a NXA-ENET24-POE?

    Wanting to give the highest priority to the MAX, AVP's, AVM's, Master connected to the max

    Second Priority the All the other masters

    Third Priority Everything else

    Have never worked with a managed switch before

    Thanks
  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    Bah - do NOT use the Netgear switch. My installation was fine until I added an AVP. Apparently they use some protocols the AVMs do not, and the Netgear was not passing them reliably. I had to swap it out for a Linksys.
  • adysadys Posts: 395
    Just save yourself time and remember that when working with Managed switches you must do this :

    http://www.amx.com/techsupport/techNote.asp?id=732
  • I have a Max with the AVPs. Never had anything but trouble with it. I did get it upgraded to the latest firmware and crossed my fingers, it seems I still loose the AVPs sometimes and can fix them by pulling the power plug (which is quite a feat with the racks).

    So, the recommendation for the Linksys SRW2016 - has then been running for awhile without problems? It would seem to me that it should run for a good year without me having to pull a plug to get it to play nice again. This setup has a dedicated switch for the Max so it doesn't have to play nice with anything else, it just has to play 3 movies at once without blowing up randomly!

    Just wanted a yes before I collect yet another switch! I do have a nice POE Linksys gigabit switch on the network, but admit I wasn't smart enough to figure out how to VLAN the thing, so I just use that for the rest of the network.

    Curt
  • viningvining Posts: 4,368
    I don't know it this is related but I recently read something about MAX and the use of managed switches. I believe it was something to do with the spanning tree set up not passing the MAX protocol or something to that effect. Poke around the AMX site and see if you can find it. I've never touch a MAX but I stumbled across this tech note recently when I was having R4 issues.
  • Tech Note 732 - but that was an issue with the AVM's network boot... The AVP's are different.

    The falling offline is really annoying, we too have a remote kill switch just for the AVP's - are you getting better reliability with the Linksys switch?

    Cheers
  • travtrav Posts: 188
    Well, you also need to disable spanning tree when dealing with the AVP's as well our you will not get the DHCP from the MAX Server.

    Only points to note are that when using the ENET24, to Subnet off ports, including one of the gigabit ports into an 'AV' Vlan, and then you can use the rest of the ports for the 'Control' Vlan. You can and some QoS to the video traffic if you so desire, but I haven't experienced any problems with video service as the backplane speed of the ENET24 if enough to handlle full duplex at maximum throughput for each port.

    That is the main thing if you are looking at a third party switch (we will no longer sell a max to a customer without an ENET24 as some of our installers have made very poor choices in switches in the past, since then we have had no issues with 'faulty max servers') make sure the backplane speed is high enough to support the maximum speed on each port concurrently.
  • Thanks Trav...

    I should have said the AVP's are different as they do not need the MAX to boot (although clearly they do to run server content). The AVM's gave the network boot error for all number of reasons - STP disabled or not...

    Do you not get the AVP's offline / unknown situation with the ENET24 switch? I've played with 3 or 4 different sorts - and none is more reliable than any other over time, sometimes weeks, sometimes hours...

    The ENET24 is way over-priced, its more than an equivilant Catalyst. If its now packaged up with the Server, then it just makes MAX even less attractive than the alternatives.
  • Hmm, so where we are at is nobody has seen MAX system that keeps running over time with AVPs? I really don't care what the switch costs anymore if it would help, but an unreliable player for 45k is beyond ridiculous.

    Curt
  • ericmedleyericmedley Posts: 4,177
    TrikinCurt wrote:
    Hmm, so where we are at is nobody has seen MAX system that keeps running over time with AVPs? I really don't care what the switch costs anymore if it would help, but an unreliable player for 45k is beyond ridiculous.

    Curt

    That's been our experience. It's probably not a good idea to post this here but, for the sake of honest open discussion and feedback, we've just quit spec-ing them into systems. I'm still dealing with repairs/breakdowns/etc... with everyone we've installed. I'm not exaggerating; every single one.
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