In this time where the cost of energy inrease I am wondering if it worth inside a company to have redundant network hardware or just one spare racked or not with its configuration ready. Especially since I looked at the https://mikrotik.com/product/crs504_4xq_in that seem to imply to use one switch for all the hw.
To be more concrete I have 2 days 2 ISPS + 1 5G backup on which I am sharing by own IP range using BGP. This is for now only used in a failover manner (i still have to figure how to share the load using IPv6).
Until now I used 2 CCR2004 (R1, R2) + 1 Chateau connected to 2 CRS317 (SW1, SW2). Routing itself is handled by 2 virtual firewall on the servers connected to each switch. On CRS317 I have a POE switch connected to power the WiFI APs:
I am testing MLAG with some success (though I have an issue sometime when the VM is migrated to another server) though I was thinking to just use the VXLANS. For the POE switch I already have a spare racked on which the configuration is duplicated. In case of a failure someone will have to switch the cable to the switch.
All of this is very redundant and allows me to update (not that often the configuration when needed or resist to a possible failure but it is alsocostly in term of power. Not only for the direct power cost of each equipments, but also the indirect cost of cooling the room( more HW = more cooling). So I am thinking today to remove that redudancy and just pre-iinstall a spare for the possible failure. Since it's the offie that should be enough. But I am wondering how many do it and what would be the best way to process the configuration of the spare and possibly switch on/off since the hw has no power button. Thoughts?
Any feedback/ experience sharing/hint is welcome