[c-nsp] Comparision between Cisco and Juniper Data Center Switches

[Devin Kinch]

Current Nexus 2148T doesn't support Etherchannel in the strictest sense (you
can do 2 port vPC down to the servers) or 100BASE-T.  They are strictly
1000BASE-T only -- this may bite you if you need 100BASE-T management ports,
etc.  Also keep in mind that the fabric extenders do not even perform L2
switching.  They are just Ethernet Host Virtualizers, which means they mux
all traffic up to the 5ks for processing.  And the N5ks do not support L3.
 There are many limitations.

But, if you need the SAN, virtualization, or 802.1ae features, there is no
comparison.  I would wait until late spring when the next model of N2k comes
out (should have proper Etherchannel, 100BASE-T, actual features, etc), and
then go Cisco.  Also NX-OS 5.0 is coming out soon too, and has a lot of
great features:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/iosswrel/ps9494/ps9372/product_bulletin_c25-577133.html

I mean, how cool is OTV?


Devin Kinch


On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 6:20 AM, Nick Hilliard <nick at inex.ie> wrote:

> On 25/02/2010 10:36, Muhammad Atif Jauahar wrote:
> >>  We are going to upgrade our Data Center we need 2 (redundant) core
> >> switches with top of rack switches (Edge).
> >>
> >> We get two Proposals
> >>
> >                 1. 2 x EX8216 Switches (Core) and few EX4200 Switches
> (Edge)
> >                  2. 2 x Nexus 7000 (Core), 2 Nexus 5000 (Distribution
> layer)
> > and few Nexus 2000 fabric extender (Edge).
> >
> >    Which Proposal is best and why? comments needed.
>
> Muhammad,
>
> Sarcasm aside, your original post didn't really contain any information
> about your engineering requirements.  As a general guideline, your first
> question should be: "what am I trying to do".  This will lead to a list of
> engineering requirements which will lead to a design and a requirements
> specification for your proposed networking equipment.
>
> The requirements specification will include details on technical features,
> cost, environmentals (size, power draw, etc), availability and so forth.
> The design will give you a good idea about how things ought to slot
> together.
>
> Once you know what you're looking for, you can then start looking around at
> what fits the bill, and what equipment features / misfeatures are likely to
> be relevant to you.  You can then pass a carefully selected specification
> to potential suppliers / manufacturers so that they can confirm what would
> or wouldn't be appropriate for your installation.  Juniper and Cisco have
> good quality engineers at their disposal, and it's entirely possible that
> they could make useful and insightful suggestions about how to improve your
> design or fine-tune your requirements.
>
> Both the Juniper EX8200 and Cisco N7K product lines are very fine pieces of
> engineering.  But they are both very expensive, and if you plan to spend a
> couple of hundred thousand € / $ on this sort of kit, the least you ought
> to do is come up with compelling reasons to choose one over the other.
>
> Nick
> _______________________________________________
> cisco-nsp mailing list  cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp
> archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
>