Ganymede

About

Ganymede is an Aruba Instant On 1930 8G 2SFP L2+ managed Ethernet Switch which I bought in 2021 to replace the decidedly ancient and far too power hungry Cisco Catalyst 3750G (C3750G-24TS-S) that had been the main switch in 2020.

While I wasn't pleased about it being manufactured by Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE), at the time I was adamant that I wanted something I could manage and that wasn't Cisco. It has two choices - cloud or local. Initially it was used with cloud management. Eventually I pulled it out of my network and replaced it with a dumb switch for a while, but it has recently been reconnected and is now the core switch once again. The only difference is that it is running in local management mode, ensuring that even once this switch reaches end-of-life it will not be bricked by a dependency on cloud management.

It's quite compact for what it is and appears to run on an Arm SoC, which contributes to it pulling next to no power compared to the Catalyst it replaced. It's also minuscule compared to the Catalyst, which was designed to fit in a standard server rack and was also 1.5 rack units tall.

It's served well and I expect it to be pretty sturdy. I do regret buying a white switch, though. It shows dirt so easily...

General Specs

• Model: Aruba Instant On 1930 Switch - 8G 2SFP (mdl no. JL680A)
• RJ45 ports: 8x GbE
• SFP ports: 2x GbE
• CPU: ARM Cortex-A9 @ 800MHz
• RAM: 512MB
• Flash: 256MB
• PoE: None (mdl. JL681A is the 124W PoE equivalent)
• OS: JL680A firmware, presumably some form of ArubaOS?
• Idle Power: 6.2W
• Max Power: 11W
• Dimensions: 25.4 x 15.95 x 4.39cm (WxDxH)
• Mean-Time Between Failure (in years): 178
• Weight: 1.16kg
• Fanless: Yes

Networking-Oriented:

• Type: Layer 2+ Managed
• Throughput: 14.88 megapackets per second (Mpps)
• Switching Capacity: 20Gbps
• Management: Cloud (via Instant On portal) or local

Trivia

• This switch cost me £105 in 2021, now Aruba want £145-160 for it. It isn't worth that much.
• It gets dirty very easily because of its white exterior casing.
• I basically use it as an unmanaged switch because I'm too dumb to know how to set things up. Waste of money.