swinog May 2026

swinog@lists.swinog.ch

3 participants
3 discussions

Intro and quick note on hardware availability
by Francis Richter 26 May '26

26 May '26

Hi all, I was at the last SWINOG and enjoyed the sessions and general exchange. Lately I have been seeing more cases where hardware availability is starting to influence design decisions again. Not at the level of the worst supply chain period, but still enough that lead times or platform shortages are pushing teams to look at alternatives. One example that came up recently was a network refresh where specific switching models were on long delivery. Instead of delaying the rollout, part of the design was adjusted to use already available gear, including refurbished units of the same platform, to stay consistent with the existing environment. It worked well as a bridge and avoided introducing a completely different vendor or OS layer. In general it feels like extending lifecycle and mixing new with existing hardware is becoming a bit more accepted again, especially when it avoids unnecessary complexity. I am working at Circular IT, where we spend most of our time sourcing network, compute and storage hardware, both refurbished and new, including kit that is no longer easy to get through standard channels. So I see these patterns quite often from the supply side as well. Curious how others here are handling refresh cycles and availability at the moment. Are you adjusting designs, or mostly sticking to standard procurement paths? Best regards, Francis Best regards, Circular IT group Joop Geesinkweg 801 1096 AZ Amsterdam Netherlands +49 39 292 714 976 Francis Richter Account Manager We make IT circular Your go-to partner for Circular ITAD, Circular Workplace, Circular IT Infra – safe, secure, compliant and impactful. Visit circularitgroup.com

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Selling some Network-related gear (32x100G SN3700C, some NICs, and so on)
by civil.over＠gmail.com 25 May '26

25 May '26

Hi, I'm looking to sell some of the equiepement from my homelab, and to be specifically: 1. Mellanox SN3700C, 32x100G switches. Model: MSN3700-CS2FC (P2C airflow), production date 2023-03-25 - they are with original package, I bought them few years ago and actually never turned them on. Technically they are openbox - outter box was opened by me, but the factory wrapping and seal on it is still intact. Asking price: 2500 CHF per switch, I have two of them. 2. ASUS W790E-SAGE SE Motherboard (LGA4677, Sapphire Rapids WS board, 6xPCIe Gen5 x16 + PCIe Gen5 x8 slots, 8 memory channels DDR5 RDIMM, etc.) + Xeon W5-3435X (Xeon WS 112L, 16 core, 3.1 GHz base, 4.7 Ghz max boost, overclockable, support XMP memory profiles) with the box and most of the accessories (for motherboard and I probably have a box for the CPU), with few extra VRM fans (Noctua 40x40x20mm). I've used that mb-cpu combo for t-rex load generator ("Generating 1 Tbps of traffic on a commodity hardware", Nog.fi 2025.06) Asking price: 1200 CHF 3. ASUS W790E-SAGE SE MB + Xeon W5-3435X, but this one without boxes and accessories and fans. Second combo from the same talk. Asking price: 1000 CHF In addition for any of the ASUS W790 mb combo, I can give for free slightly broken Artic Freezer 4U-M - one of the screws there fall off, probably can be inserted back with right tool. Optionally - I have somewhere chineese cooler for LGA 4677 (looks similar to Noctua NH-U12S DX4677, but has high RPM noname fans and called "coolserver m97") for extra 20 CHF. I might have some other LGA4677 coolers around. 4. ConnectX-5 MCX516A-CDAT (PCIe Gen4), in a box, with high profile bracket only (I think I don't have low profile, but I can look), flashed with latest available firmware from ~January 2026. Asking price: 200 CHF per card. I have two of those. Note: those were originally CCAT, but reflashed to CDAT. 5. Bluefield-2 MBF2M345A-VENOT (Crypto Disabled, E-Core, 16GB RAM, 1x200G - basically I used them in NIC-mode as ConnectX-6 Dx), 300 CHF each. I can sell at least 2 of them, probably more as I have spare cards that I don't use. 6. I can also sell (if needed) 8x16GB RDIMM DDR5-4800 for 2.5k CHF. I used those sticks in one of the t-rex machines during the tests as I needed some RAM but not much. All bigger stuff is self-pickup at 8864 Reichenburg until ~05.06.2026, after that I would move to 8545 Rickenbach ZH, small stuff I can bring to Zurich HB at one of the days when I am in Zurich. Price is negotiable with reason (e.x. if you want to get both switches and self-pick up before I move to a new place - I would gladly sell both of them for 4k total)

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SwiNOG #41 Recap – Full House on the Gurten, Switzerland
by Steven Glogger 01 May '26

01 May '26

Hi all, SwiNOG #41, held on April 28, 2026, on Bern’s Gurten, once again demonstrated what makes the Swiss Network Operators Group special: strong technical content, an engaged community, and a format that simply works. This edition saw exceptionally high demand — for the first time, we had to introduce a waiting list. Out of 180 available seats, 169 participants joined on the day, reflecting a consistently strong show rate and the commitment of the community. Technical depth that matters The agenda covered a wide range of real-world challenges and forward-looking topics. From optical transport insights — such as analysing transceiver efficiency using VDM metrics — to practical approaches in network automation, observability, Agentic Network Operations: What AI Can (and Can’t) Do in and infrastructure resilience, the talks stayed close to what operators actually deal with day-to-day. What stood out again was the balance: no buzzword bingo, no vendor fluff — just technical talks, shared experiences, and things you can actually take back and apply. Talks * Rethinking Network Strategy & Building Resilience Through PNIs, Peering and Smart Geographical Expansion – Wouter Van Renterghem (RETN GmbH) * bgproutes.io: A Next-Gen BGP Data Collection Platform – Thomas Holterbach (University of Strasbourg) * Understanding and Optimising Transceiver Power Consumption Using Internal Metrics – Gerhard Stein (Flexoptix GmbH) * Shared Spectrum & MOFN – Liam Taylor (EXA Infrastructure) * 25 Years of SwissIX – A Quarter Century of Peering – Arist Volger (SwissIX) * SwissIX Update – Arist Volger (SwissIX) * Toward Agentic Network Operations: What AI Can (and Can’t) Do – Tobias Bühler (netfabric.ai) * An Introduction to ASPA – Validating AS-Paths with the help of RPKI - Massimiliano Stucchi (SwiNOG) * EVPN Unleashed: Scaling Multi-Domain Fabrics with EVPN Gateways – Remi Locherer (modus one / Arista) * SCION Inter-Domain Routing – Tilmann Zäschke (ETH Zürich) * The Network Automation Map: Navigate Your Journey with NAF – Damien Garros (OpsMill) * Building a Vendor-Agnostic E2E Testing Ecosystem with Netlab – Leandro Lerena & Andy Griesbeck (Zebbra AG) * Introduction to CHNUG – Severin Dellsperger (OST University) * Closing Remarks – Simon Ryf & Steven Glogger (SwiNOG) Resources are online As always, all presentations and videos are available online: 👉 https://www.swinog.ch/meetings/swinog41/ This ensures the content lives beyond the event and remains accessible to the broader community. Looking ahead SwiNOG continues to grow — not just in numbers, but in relevance. The increasing demand shows that there is still a strong need for a neutral, community-driven space focused on real technical exchange. A big thank you to all speakers, sponsors, and participants who made SwiNOG #41 possible. See you at the next one. SwiNOG #42 is in the planning for this autumn. -steven SwiNOG Core Team

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swinog May 2026