1U Switch for Datacentre Usage

[Cromulent]

I'm looking to colo some Raspberry Pis in a datacentre. I get a single CAT 5 Ethernet 1gbps link, and I'll want to connect about 10 Raspberry Pis to it. I know about Cisco and Juniper but they are massively expensive, and I image tricky to learn. I was wondering if there was a more budget option available? The project does not require 100% uptime so I can cut a few corners. I'm just not sure what is needed. I'll need to be able to configure VLANs and assign IPv4 and IPv6 addresses to the Raspberry Pis (although I'm not sure if there is a better way to do that).

Any help is appreciated .

 

[Cromulent]

Just chuck a Ubiquity switch in there if you don't have any actual requirements other than to create a few VLANs and Assign IP Addresses. Any managed switch will do this, so you pretty much have the entire market open, from basic Netgear rubbish to Cisco SG series, Meraki, HPE etc.

What do you actually need? Do you need VLANs, does each Pi need to be segregated from each other? Do you need routing across VLANs because if so you'll want a L3 Switch.

I'll need to separate each customer on the network (each customer might have multiple Raspberry Pis). I'll need to be able to allocate IPv6 using SLAAC and maybe DHCP for IPv4 otherwise I'll just statically assign IP addresses myself although that could get a bit messy as things grow. I'm not sure how big networks handle that particular issue.

I was thinking about building a switch myself from commodity hardware running FreeBSD since I know how to use FreeBSD well and it has a good reputation when it comes to its firewall and general network usage. Do you think that would be an acceptable option?