[c-nsp] 8 Racks of Servers and Growing; switch/layout recommendations

[Doug Warner]

We currently have 8 racks of servers with about 21 servers per rack +2 IP-PDUs
and are pretty much using an entire 24-port switch (C2960G right now) in each
rack.  Some racks have a 48-port C2960G due to some boxes having redundant
nics, but our "main" 48 port switch is maxxed out due to some servers using
dual nics and uplinks to the other switches.  We're pushing 600Mbps right now
and growing about 50Mbps/month.

What are peoples' recommendations for where to go from here? The 2960's work
well per-rack for us and are ridiculously cheap.  We were considering getting
a C4948-10GE for our main data drop, but as we can see we're already maxing
out the ports in that rack.  We're also pushing the limits of the c2960s where
we actually push some bandwidth around (seeing outdiscards on trunk ports) and
were looking to move to something with a faster backplane and move some
servers around to consolidate the bulk of the bandwidth onto that switch.

What's a good method for growing here?  Do people like top-of-rack for
situations where we have a cage (all the racks are side-by-side), or do you
prefer end-of-row?  Will a couple 4948's (maybe a mix of 10GE and SFP models)
to hold the big talkers be sufficient, or do we need to look at just getting a
6509 with associated 48 port Gig-E blades?  The biggest fear I have with going
to the 6500 is price, but at our growth rate I'm not sure if I can avoid it.

Any advice or past experiences is welcome.

-Doug

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