Impact of frequent power outtage to Catalyst switches

[hashaari]

Hi!

Need to know if there any impact to the Catalyst switches if they are subjected to frequent power outage.Could the system memory such as flash and RAM be corrupted by such event. Apreciate the help thanks.

[pflunkert]

Hi, the Cisco switches react as every other power device. In the most cases nothing happens, but somethings you could become problems. Unfortunally every memory could corrupted through freuquent power outage.

But perhaps our experience will help you. Our tac with more than 50 different Cisco device (Cisco router, switches, ap, css) are connected to our power management. Every evening the power management set the power off, and every morning the power is set on. This works since more than one year without any corrupted device. But perhaps tomorrow.....

You understand, what i mean??

Regards

Peter

[konigl]

Power dips or brownouts can affect the switch, causing it to not operate normally or hang. This can be due to contents of RAM not being refreshed in time, thereby becoming corrupted and needing a reboot to clear. Or, if you're in the middle of writing changes to flash when the power dips, you can end up with a corrupted software image.

Power outages or blackouts have the same effect as just turning the switch off or unplugging the power cable. Not really any harm to the equipment there.

It's when the switch is powered back on after an outage or blackout that you need to be concerned. Surges or spikes can fry your network electronics. Surges and spikes can also come into the equipment from anything that's plugged into the 10/100/1000 copper ports, too. If a computer is not plugged into a surge suppressor or grounded properly, for example, or you run copper cable between buildings, electricity can find its way back to the switch through the network data cables and damage it.

At the very least, your switches should be attached to a surge suppressor. A UPS would be even better.

And if you think you're at risk to power problems coming back to the switch through the network cables, there are in-line devices that can be used to protect against this, too. APC's ProtectNet products are an example of these. But they can interfere with delivery of in-line power from a switch, so if that's something you need then don't use them.