gigaACE over Trunk/VLAN

dLive dLive General Discussions
1

Hi there

I‘m aware this topic has been discussed in the past and I think I have read pretty much everything I could find about it.
I also read and understood this article: Audio Networking. gigaACE and DX networking, VLANs, and fibre optics
Still, it feels a bit like unknown territory, not recently discussed and I‘m not sure if I should attempt to build this. Obviously it needs to be bulletproof.

What I‘m trying to do:

  • Find a way to fit both a Waves + Dante card into a C-class dLive System while still using only one Cat line or fiber stage <> FOH.
  • Have both protocols (Waves + Dante) accessable at FOH.
  • Have the Waves Servers at FOH

This is my current level of information / plan:

  • Fit the Waves card into the surface, Dante card into the MixRack.
  • Set up two switches like below:
  • Configure a VLAN to behave like a layer 2 switch, tagged as VLAN1. Send gigaACE over this VLAN as if it was a port-to-port connection.
  • Send Dante over second VLAN.
  • Sending both VLANs over a trunk line.

Has anyone successfully attempted this (with any other product than the officially supported but very expensive Agora switches)?

Has anyone used Netgear AVLine switches with gigaACE?

Thanks in advance for any insights.

2

Option 1: Put Dante & Waves at FOH (C Class). You can also put 2 Dante cards in (Surface, MR), just make sure you understand clocking.

GigaAce (specifically the console link) is a full 1G link, so you need a 10gig fiber between the switches assuming there is any distance involved. At that point, run a 6 strand fiber with Layer 2 copper/fiber adapters for GigaAce and your switches for networking.

In short, if you have other options, you don’t want to GigaAce over network. Yes, Netgear has a profile for it, but you have to run with more clock jitter which you will hear. Also, by the time you have the right infrastructure to support it properly, you also have enough to keep the GigaAce separate.

3

The advice I have is that unless you’re very good at networking, get a pair of Netgear m4250 switches with 10gbps uplinks and use their buikt in template for gigaACE. Youll need to set the console to high jitter tolerance and need up to date firmware.

Keep in mind your ethernet distances are less at 10gbps for the same cable. We often run fiber instead.