[c-nsp] Data Center switch replacement

[manolo hernandez]

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On 12/17/09 5:25 PM, chris at lavin-llc.com wrote:
> 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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> 
Chris,

  If you already have the redundancy in place with the old hardware, it
should be as simple as migrating one side of the pair of switches. This
way the customer is always up and running and you can switch them over
to the new gear seamlessly and then replace the other side with minimal
downtime.


  Just my 2 cents from someone who has gone through that same scenario.



Manny
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