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Comment by laurentdc | Hacker News Reader

I'm wondering, what's to gain in all this? Does switching to slightly different parts (e.g. Micron vs Spansion flash module) make the final BOM so much cheaper that it's worth manufacturing a fake Ethernet switch?

Just by taking a look at PCB pictures it looks like the counterfeiter managed to get their hands on some scrap or older revision boards and even went through more hoops (like that "modchip" design) to make them boot. Seems so overkill for a switch that goes for 250$ used - am I missing something?

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Cisco basically sells software that only runs on their hardware. Slight exaggeration, but the reason old Cisco switches and routers are dirt cheap online is because it's usually a license violation to use them. The software on a Cisco device is licensed to the person or company who purchases it from Cisco or an authorized Cisco partner, and it's non-transferrable. (Also, you can't get software updates unless you have an active support contract or can identify a specific vulnerability and prove that you were the original purchaser of the unit in question in a support TAC.)

Which means if you buy an aftermarket Cisco device, you're pirating the software on it unless you go through Cisco's pricey relicensing process... which mostly makes it cost you as much as buying a brand new device anyways. Obviously, homelab folks and test lab folks don't care too much, and Cisco doesn't mind them, but enterprises can't use used Cisco hardware.

As such, counterfeit Cisco hardware makes sense: It's basically software piracy, but they have to provide hardware that'll trick it into running.

Licensing agreements like this always make me wonder how companies are supposed to handle the accounting for depreciation on hardware. Since the license isn't transferable, the effective resale value of the expensive hardware you just bought is zero as soon as you open the box.

I think Cisco's in-house refurbishment center might be an option, it's the only way you can legitimately buy used Cisco hardware.

(I also feel like we should give a shoutout to HP/Aruba in this thread. No support contract needed, they straight-up warranty and support most of their network hardware for like 100 years.)

I believe the have "advanced replacement" where they will cross ship warrantied items instead of waiting until they receive the bad one to send the good one.

However, I think that ends at the EOL of the item. Usually when they stop manufacturing it.

Mind you aruba is not in the same playing field as cisco. These conveluted license schemes are mainly designed for the higher end datacenter and connectivity hardware. (And with that hardware comes support).

It's the same reason optics are whitelisted (how bullshittish that might be). If you are a datacenter or L1 IXP, spending a couple of grand on licenses is nothing compared to the cost of running the rest of the infrastructure. Not to mention you need the support when shit really hit's the fan.

My experience with aruba's support has been lackluster, while both cisco and juniper offer excellent support in my experience. (at a cost ofcourse).

Accounting depreciation for assets is not directly related to resale value.

Depreciation is intended to be an allocation of the purchase price across the whole expected usefulness term of that asset, it reflects the notion that in this year you "used up" some portion of an asset that will last for more years, so it makes sense to allocate just a part of the total cost to this year's cost of doing business. The intended purpose of that asset is to serve your business, not to resell it, so the fact that nobody would would buy that asset does not matter.

I would like to add that on almost anything made by Cisco that is smaller than 4U there really is not any kind of hardware secret sauce. Small switches like 2960 are little more than off-the shelf switching fabric from one of the well-known vendors of such a thing and software. And really only interesting thing about the software on the device is the Cisco “feeling” and branding.

Also counterfeit Cisco hardware seems to be a major issue for Cisco since at least nineties. It is the reason why there are hologram stickers on almost anything. Then there is the observation that a lot of Cisco hardware contain some kind of completely unnecessary FPGA/ASIC implementing some comparatively trivial functionality, I suspect that the whole reason for this is to make counterfeiting harder.

Disclaimer: I work on SP-grade routers at Cisco.

The secret sauce has nothing to do with router size, but rather port density, bandwidth, and feature scale. For instance, Cisco’s latest generation of routers, the Cisco 8000 series, gets you 10.8 Tbps in a 1 RU fixed form factor.

What larger routers do provide is hardware redundancy, which is important when it comes to minimizing downtime.

The <4U size was meant as approximation of the expected market segment and the number itself came to me as “anything smaller than smallest 6k5”. In fact I just wanted to avoid the “entry-level” moniker.

Another question is router vs. switch. And as for routers I'm still somewhat discontent with Cisco's marketing wrt. CEF which on “small-ish” Cisco platforms simply meant implementing routing logic in software in exactly same way as any OS with BSD derived IP stack instead of the original IOS braindead implementation.

And as for hardware redundancy: I have large amount of stories that somewhat discredit the idea of low level redundancy (ie. you remove the SPOF and replace it with another failure point in the fail over logic that is guaranteed to fail in ways that nobody understands). And two of these stories with largest impact involve Cisco hardware.

Hmm things which are not just a feeling:

* Confidence in interoperability / drop in replacement

* Can use existing configuration(s) without rewriting

* Can benefit from existing knowledge, training, expertise and documentation

* Service, existing contracts, etc.

* Network architects / designers don't have to find new visio stencils (Ok joking... well, half joking).

TL:DR; I think most customers in Cisco are buying into the ecosystem, not the hardware.

You're missing Cisco's margins from the gain. Cisco is taking an easy 50-70% markup above base hardware costs... That switch is $2.5k USD "new". Even if it costs you $300 for parts and a bunch of hours you're still making a ridiculous amount of money.

Like the article states, Cisco does sell at a major premium, so as long as you undercut that, you can make money.

It can be complicated. When you are sourcing parts in bulk for manufacturing the price needs to be negotiated through a personal relationship. It could be the case that the vendors making parts for Cisco do not want to endanger their existing business relationship and will not sell (or insist on a heft markup), it could also be the case that the counterfeiters have better connections with a different supplier who is willing to give them a better unit price (large corporations can typically negotiate a better unit price since they can guarantee larger and more consistent volumes). There are a lot of potential reasons why you might want to swap a component.

There’s certainly some R&D involved. However, the software is entirely pirated from what I understand, so that’s a lot of money you save.

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