[c-nsp] Stacking 3750X vs diverse 4948E

[Keegan Holley]

The 3750X is relatively new so I've only seen a few of them.  Stackwise in
general is pretty solid.  I've never seen a whole stack fail.  If a member
fails the stack just keeps going, if the master tails a new master is
elected.  One thing to watch out for is the fact that the 3750X isn't
intended to be a high performance DC switch.  I have seen issues with queue
drops because of small packet buffers on the non-X version which leads to
trouble if you do alot of 1G at line rate.  I haven't checked the X series,
but I'm told it's not recommended for high performance environments either.


2012/5/18 David Coulson <david at davidcoulson.net>

> In a datacenter environment, we typically deploy 4948 top-of-rack switches
> with L2 uplinks to our 6500 core - Systems get connections into two
> different switches and rely on OS NIC bonding (mostly Linux) to support
> switch failures. Switches running STP and in the last four years we've had
> no issues with this design (including failures of systems connected to
> diverse switches).
>
> A new proposed configuration utilizes stacked 3750X switches, where
> servers would be connected to multiple switches within the same stack. I
> have next to no experience in the low-end switches that do stacking, but
> from a general risk management perspective, it seems like a many eggs and
> single basket configuration.
>
> Does anyone have any solid experience with 3750X switches, or stacking in
> a datacenter in general? I've seen plenty of stacks for closets/end-users,
> but I don't see many in a top-of-rack config. Is Cisco stacking typically
> 'reliable', in that when a switch fails it will leave the remainder of the
> stack functional? What about a software issue? Does the whole stack crap
> out and reload, or does the master just fail and a new one get elected?
>
> I realize it's a pretty broad question, but it boils down to - Is a
> stacked switch config significantly less reliable/resilient/available than
> two TOR switches?
>
> David
>
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