Power over Ethernet (PoE) basics and beyond

PoE is a godsend that should really be in more consumer devices and households, alongside structured wiring. An AppleTV, Chromecast, or NVIDIA Shield can easily fit within the envelope of PoE+, as can many enterprise-grade switches and WAPs (see UniFi as an example). Converting AC to DC once at the switch is more efficient (in resources and often, but not always, power) than including bulky PSUs for every device, while simplifying the ease of setup for end users (in theory).

Whenever possible, I opt for PoE. It’s a damn shame it’s limited to a niche userbase given its myriad advantages.

In my head enterprise grade switch has 48 ports with some >10g SFPs for uplink. What does enterprise grade mean to you? And what enterprise grade switches are poe powered?

Arista 710P for instance. I don’t see what port count has to do with it, it runs the same OS and has the same capabilities as all their other switches. Cisco has a Catalyst 9k like this too.

In my head, one of the things that makes up an "enterprise grade" switch is 48 ports. Because "for the enterprise", in my opinion, evokes some idea of large scale deployment, not a mom and pop trinket store with one PoS cash register device and three company computers.

What does enterprise grade mean to you?