Intel Express Stacks

Stacking some Intel Express 510T Switches and 220T hubs with special cables to combine multiple physical units into logical ones for easier management. All of this can be done with the Intel Device View software running on Windows XP. We'll also try to get a 1gigabit fiber link going to a Cisco 7200 VXR router.

Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

#intel #networking #retrotech

Rack stuff

Video gear

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[clabretro]

A patron named Luke pointed out I need to switch the media-type of the gigabit interface on the 7200 to gbic (that's why the RJ45 en light was always on). Sure enough -- both link lights on the fiber modules are on now. Still more troubleshooting to do, but fiber videos coming in the future!

[MarkyShaw]

“When she sees my stacks, I bet you that she calls.” Now I finally understand what these lyrics mean.

[ImpiantoFacile]

Old enterprise software is so fascinating, it feels way more polished and finished than modern software that always feels like a beta at best.

[repatch]

The reason for bits is historic: a 'byte' wasn't always define as 8 bits. Depending on the machine and links involved a 'byte' would refer to the number of bits needed to represent a character. 6 and 9 bits for one byte wasn't uncommon in the beginning of computing, and many other numbers of bits were used. As a result, you couldn't define the bandwidth of a communication channel by bytes/s without also throwing in how many bits were in a byte. As a result, using bits/s was the only universally understood figure, so it stuck.

As time progressed 8bits = 1byte became pretty universal, but at that point communication systems were used to be defined in bits/s, so that's why we have it today.

[rsnilssen]

The 850nm modules are multi-mode transceivers. The 1310nm modules are single-mode transceivers. Multi-mode is for shorter distances, usually up to 300 meters. They do come in a couple of variants, the OM2+ versions usually have an inner core size of 50um, while the OM1 usually is 62.5um. The way the different multimode patch cables are differentiated is through their colour, gray is legacy OM1, modern OM1 and OM2 are orange, the cyan one is OM3 and so on, there is plenty of reference material to be found if you wanna geek out over the details. Yellow is usually used only for single-mode fiber, which has an inner core of 9um. I have no idea why multi-mode is still thriving even today in enterprise DC networks cause there is no real price difference today, though it used to be huge differences in the past, hence the popularity of multi-mode in the past.

All that said, you are right about the receive and transmit, usually it is indicated by small arrows on the transceiver themselves, and by simply switching them around, you should get link, but as you pointed out you did not. There is two likely reasons, one the interface is administratively shut down on the router or switch side or both, or it is simply that the modules are horribly dirty (clean them out with a lint-free tiny q-tip style thing with isoprop, do several cleans to make sure - usually if they are kept in very dirty environments with their dustcaps off, an oily film can build up on optical surface of the connectors themselves).

Another reason might be that on the router side you need to configure the router to use the GBIC rather than the copper interface. I remember buying the G1 controller card when it was brand new and all the rage for a measly $10k. But I don't remember if I had to set a particular config flag to indicated optical rather than electrical interface. Hope this helps!

[bw]

I usually just use 10x for bytes to bits rather than 8 to allow for some frame overhead etc. I agree that using bits instead of bytes was a marketing thing, same as hard drives using 1000 vs 1024 for a kilobyte. Back in the day bridges were used to join hubs, which eventually turned into boxes full of bridges which came to be called switches. Thanks for the video!

[chrisw]

You NEED a wall of these. You need it yesterday. Give in to the stack!

[pauldunecat]

For cleaning fiber ports, I highly recommend the click style (sort of a pen shape, a cap with a lanyard). You will need one for SC connections (the square ones) as well as LC.(the SFP ones). They can clean ports and cables. Two clicks and you're clean. A must have!

[doq]

the port test on the hubs at 24:03 was way too satisfying

[Zizzily]

Now we just need to combine the Intel Stack with the Linksys Stack. And perhaps we need to make a Cisco Stack as well.

[instructormatt_]

I love your content. You are the Techmoan of enterprise computing. Keep it coming!

[halitimes]

Device view uses SNMP communities to manage the switch, bypassing the username and password.
As long as the SNMP write community is default "public" you can do the reset and whatever you want.

[cygnusx]

All of these peices stacked up together remind me of stereo component stacks in the 80s and 90s. Love it, haha

[taldmd]

You can easily test if fiber ports are good by just doing a loopback test, that is connecting tx to rx with a single fiber. If the port is good, link will be up. And splitting the bundled tx+rx is common practice, no need to worry.

[warthogA]

The real fun in all of this back in the day,
was doing it all live on a client's property, with a client who didn't follow all the steps arranged by the designers of your company..

They would not make a scheduled arrangement to be ready and chaos would ensue with people breathing down your neck throughout the entire process..

In other words, they didn't understand why they need to put out word to all their customer base that they would be shut down for an upgrade or maintenance work..
which meant they could be losing a lot of money and customer problems during the entire process,
.. and it was all YOUR FAULT.. because YOU are the guy on site.
So you're basically everyone's punching bag.

And to add to all this fun, dealing with a spider web if patch cords done for a couple years by an IT team who rarely labeled anything very well, and definitely never learned to or really caree about cabling

[JTrickZ]

Excited for your Fiber journey.
Bits are a measure of speed.
Bytes are a measure of space/stroage.

[LongLiveCanada-]

Omg VT100 ❤❤❤... You remind me of my Data Center days.. ten years at a hospital!!❤ Miss it so much! 😢

[RhodderzX]

Random thing i learnt on bits vs bytes
In networking you usually care more about the transfer rate (transfers per second) or bits which is usually how alot of the data is managed/views on a base level within the switching/routing.
On the "client" or "endpoint" side you really only care about the data means together
This was more of a actual reason in the early days and stuck around due to the good ole tradition.

[joshuamichael]

I'll join you on your fibre journey, I've finally bit the bullet and bought stuff to play around with the mysterious SFP ports in my rack.

[DaimlerSleeveValve]

Comms refers to bits rather than bytes because, for the most part, data is moved a single bit at a time. Over copper, you need to reach 1000BaseT before you leave the realm of transmitting (or receiving) one-bit-at-a-time. You are right about Marketing though. For decades we in IT used kilo- and mega- prefixes to refer to powers of 2. Then Marketing figures that they could sell a 110GB drive as "120GB". I'm surprised that IBM didn't describe their 5.25" disks as "368 kilobytes".