[c-nsp] Data Center switch replacement

[Tony Varriale]

What's the current architecture?

tv
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <chris at lavin-llc.com>
To: <cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2009 4:25 PM
Subject: [c-nsp] Data Center switch replacement


> Sometimes the simplest things can grow into the biggest projects.
>
> For those of you that provide or support large data centers, I have a
> situation that I'd like to pick your brains about.
>
> We have some older switch gear that needs replaced because line cards are
> beyond MTBF and several have failed recently. Because of these outages the
> need to upgrade isn't a hard sell. We already have the new gear on hand.
>
> The challenge is in the migration to these new switches. The four switches
> are deployed as pairs. One switch of a pair is the primary link for
> servers and the other switch is the secondary link for servers.
>
> I have two options I'm kicking around. The first and most disruptive is to
> power down a switch, unplug the cables, remove the switch from the rack,
> install the new switch and plug the server connections in. My clients are
> pushing hard against this option because of the downtime involved. The
> second option is to stand up the new switches in other places within the
> data center and run patch panel to patch panel connections. This would
> provide for much less down time (est. 30 seconds per server) but would
> incur a pretty hefty cabling cost. Of course, money is an issue.
>
> In the end I realize someone will have to evaluate the trade off and tell
> me to either execute and take the customers down or pay the piper, buy the
> additional cabling and minimize the impact to the customers.
>
> I'm curious to know how other folks have approached this situation before?
> How do you move 600+ server connections from an old switching environment
> to a new switching environment? Since we're experiencing outages, time is
> a piece of the equation.
>
> Thanks,
> -chris
>
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