[c-nsp] Small DC switch design

[Mark Tinka]

On Tuesday, May 15, 2012 05:58:34 PM Jason Gurtz wrote:

> For
> the core, look at the 4900M or the newer 4500-X; these
> two switches are basically a semi-fixed version of the
> cat45xx (fixed sup, replaceable line cards).

We quite like the 4500-X jobs for core switching these days, 
especially when much of your traffic is hitting the routers 
and not going across the core switches to begin with.

The ability to easily switch between Gig-E and 10-Gig-E on 
the same port is massively attractive. Same reason we like 
Juniper's EX4500 switches.

We're finding fewer and fewer reasons to justify classic 
core switches (6500's, EX8200's, e.t.c.) in some deployments 
where you need them for hierarchy and versatility, but less 
so for brutal strength.

> Another budget-wise choice for the core and
> aggregation may be the ME3600X/ME3800X. It's marketed at
> the ISP space but search through the archives of this
> list for discussion of it.

I've used the ME3600X's as core switches (pure Layer 2) as 
well as Access switches (IP/MPLS). They work. Still lots of 
software development required for the IP/MPLS side of 
things, but they work.

Mark.