[c-nsp] Cisco Catalyst 4948E vs Nexus 3048

[Nick Hilliard]

On 25/01/2013 23:33, Vincent Aniello wrote:
> However, I am unsure of is if the comparing the shared buffer size on the 
> switches is an apples-to-apples comparison or if there are differences in 
> how the switches operate that make the smaller buffer on the Nexus a 
> non-issue.

N3K are cut-thru switches, while C4900 are store-n-forward boxes.  Normally
you can get away with smaller buffers on a cut-thru, but ymmv.

If you're having problems with microbursting and associated packet loss,
you may need to rethink how you handle your traffic.  E.g. use 10G uplinks
/ downlinks with a 1G access layer, or else use a switch with better
buffering.  There's no one right answer to this - different situations will
require different solutions.

Nick