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How to Write a Killer Switch RFP for eRate

Click here to watch our webcast that we hosted on November 20th titled “4 Tips for Writing a Killer Switch RFP for eRate.”

To meet the requirements of USAC and other RFP requirements, it’s strongly recommended to include enough detail in your RFP or Form 470 to allow providers to respond directly without asking a lot of questions. Providing these details up front will save you (and your respondents) volumes of time, and ensure you’re getting the right equipment.

While writing your RFP for switching and routing hardware, here are the features you should consider and detail in your requirements. Different features have different impact on price, so we’ll loosely present these in the order of most to least impact. For example, a full dynamic routing switch is more expensive than a layer 2 switch with the same number and type of ports. Port types, form factor and power requirements are just some of the features you should specify. Here’s a fairly comprehensive list you can use during your eRate requests, or for any RFPs.

RFP-Infographic

Click here for the “How to Write a Killer Switch RFP Checklist”

Routing requirements

One of the first things to specify are the routing requirements because they provide the foundation for the “beefiness” of the switch. By nature of their use cases, switches that do full dynamic routing are going to have more features, more memory and more capabilities than a non-routing access switch. It can also be the biggest determining factor on price. We’ve certainly seen many of those beefy $5,000 switches put out in small classrooms where less capable switches could have been used for 1/10th the cost.

a.       Full dynamic layer 3

Dynamic layer 3 routing switches support routing protocols such as RIP, OSPF and BGP. We’d even recommend listing the specific routing protocols you’re using since not all routing switches natively support all routing protocols. You may need a license upgrade for some features depending on the manufacturer. In schools, these switches are most often used in the core or main closet of each school.

b.      Light layer 3

We refer to light layer 3 switches as those with very minimal routing capabilities, they’ll usually route between VLANs within that switch and may offer a limited number of static routes (10-20 is common).

c.       Layer 2 only

Pure access layer, or layer 2 switches typically have no routing capabilities. These are usually your classroom switches in education environments.

d.      Other routing services or protocols

There are layer 3 protocols that accompany the routing requirements but have slightly different functions. In recent years, Protocol-Independent Multicast (PIM) has been used more frequently in schools support IPTV and other video-over-IP projects. If you have requirements along these lines, be sure to include them in the RFP or Form 470.

Port speeds and types required

Include the number and type of edge/access ports and uplinks ports. This tells your providers how many edge PoE/PoE+ ports you need, and at what speed. In addition, the number of both edge/primary and uplink ports and types is important. If you need 22 Gig PoE ports for edge devices, but the same closet or switch needs to have also 8 gigabit fiber SFP connections, that changes recommendations drastically. We’ll address fiber in a minute, but for most standard needs of copper access layer ports, be sure to include the following items in combination – meaning you may need to mix and match the attributes below and provide a list that’s several lines long.

a.       Number of ports required

A range or a minimum number is good. Specificity helps here; you may consider all 48-port switches to be equal, but some models may have 44 edge ports and 4-8 uplinks. If you’ve specified a 48-port switch when you really only need 30-some, then you specified yourself out of a potentially good fit in a 44+4 port switch. Remember to include requirements for edge ports as well as uplink ports.

b.      Port speed requirements

Although the current standard for edge ports is Gig, go ahead and specify your needs since there are many 10/100 switches out there still, and there are some newer use cases for higher speeds including 10GbE and even 40GbE. Uplink ports continue to grow in capability; 1GbE uplinks are still found some places but 10GbE and 40GbE are becoming more casual and 100GbE options are already in the works.

c.       Power over Ethernet (PoE) requirements

For the edge ports, include what type of power/power draw you need/expect and be sure to specify how many ports need to support that PoE. Type of power will be 802.3af (standard PoE serving up to 15W on ports) or 802.3at (PoE+ serving up to 25W on ports). Check with your team before you specify standard PoE. It’s usually just as cost-effective to go ahead and get PoE+, and many newer wireless APs will need the extra juice to run all their radios. Not all switches support full power on all ports. In fact, many access layer switches don’t so be sure to include how many ports need the PoE/PoE+. If you’re not sure- ask your integrator or manufacturer for guidance.

Fiber optic connections required

Here’s one place you can really save yourself time and frustration by providing this required info on  your RFP or Form 470. We’ve found many RFP writers like to simply specify fiber and the speed, but that’s not enough information for any manufacturer to specify the correct fiber optic transceivers.

Fiber optics and transceivers are selected based on the fiber types, fiber cable bandwidths, and distances they’ll be running, and those details should be specified for each fiber connection. It’s a daunting task for many schools because the fiber types and run distances are frequently undocumented. While guessing may work for you in most circumstances, there are times you should be very cautious about choosing optics, such as when upgrading a connection from 1GbE fiber to 10GbE fiber. The requirements of a fiber cable to transmit 1Gbps of data versus 10Gbps of data are very different and what worked for 1Gbps very likely won’t’ work for 10Gbps.

This is one of those details your RFP respondents really can’t (or shouldn’t) guess, and it’s not something they can find out, or figure out for you. If the info isn’t available, it’s definitely worth contracting your cabling vendor to discover and document this for you. Remember, the optics that will work best will need to fit the parameters of fiber type (single-mode or multi-mode), bandwidth, and distance (of the cable itself).

Fiber optic transceivers vary greatly in price; one optic for multi-mode may cost $600, and a more refined single-mode optic may be $3,000 or more so you want to get this part right. The general rules are: 1) the shorter the distance, the crappier the cable quality can be and still work (think of aiming at the shooting range and having a larger margin of error at short range), and 2) the more expensive the optic, the more refined the manufacturing is to support higher quality. Poorly-chosen optics may still work but result in a variety of errors or strange behavior on the network.

Worth noting is that many manufacturers will not support their switches if you have installed any 3rd party or unapproved optics in them. Don’t be fooled by the grey market optics; they’ll advertise they’re compliant and even manufacturer-authorized but 90% of the time those are false claims. If you’re not sure, ask your manufacturer support team.

Physical and environmental requirements

Last but certainly not least, it pays to be aware of physical and environmental limitations in your environment. It’s the silly things that will leave install teams scratching their heads when putting in new hardware. Consider and detail in the RFP any constraints on rack space, depth, access, and power in a closet or planned installation area. Newer switches have more power draw which means they may need better power, and more rack space. Some switches are approaching server-depth in racks and they simply won’t fit in the older wall-hung racks, or smaller cabinets with doors.

Summary

If you include as much detail as you can about these areas, you’ll be in great shape with your eRate Form 470 or RFP. You’ll notice a bit of up-front time pays for itself in dividends on the back-end as respondents are trying to put responses together.

  • Routing requirements
  • Port speeds and types required
  • Fiber optic connections required
  • Physical and environmental requirements

 

Click here to watch our webcast that we hosted on November 20th titled “4 Tips for Writing a Killer Switch RFP for eRate.”

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