[c-nsp] Cisco 4900M questions

[Blake Pfankuch - Mailing List]

Howdy.  I have a pair of leftover 4900M switches.  They were decommissioned so I am trying to reuse them into another environment.  Well actually 2... I have 2 smaller DEV/QA environments, each containing 8 VLAN's each.  Ideally, I would like to have each of the networks have its own layer 3 core, however I am trying to save a few pennies...  This leads into my first question.

I am fairly new to VRF's however I think I have this sorted out.  I believe I can do a VRF definition for each of the environments, and then assign the vlan interfaces to each VRF.  Something like this.  Please bear with my config.  I do not have the device in a place I can connect to it, so I wrote this from memory based on my reading.

Conf t
Vlan 101
Name DEV1
Vlan 102
Name DEV2
Vlan 201
Name QA1
Vlan 202
Name QA2
Vlan 501
Name DEVEdge
Vlan 502
Name QAEdge

vrf definition DEV
address-family ipv4
exit-address-family
vrf definition QA
address-family ipv4
exit-address-family

Int vlan 101
Desc DEV1 Network
Vrf forwarding DEV
Ip address 192.168.101.1 255.255.255.0
No shut
Int vlan 102
Desc DEV2 Network
Vrf forwarding DEV
Ip address 192.168.101.1 255.255.255.0
No shut

Int vlan 201
Desc QA1 Network
Vrf forwarding QA
Ip address 192.168.201.1 255.255.255.0
No shut
Int vlan 202
Desc QA2 Network
Vrf forwarding QA
Ip address 192.168.202.1 255.255.255.0

Int vlan 501
Desc DEV Edge Network
Vrf forwarding DEV
Ip address 10.50.1.1 255.255.255.252
No shut
Int vlan 502
Desc QA Edge Network
Vrf forwarding Qa
Ip address 10.50.2.1 255.255.255.252
No shut

Ip route vrf DEV 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.50.1.2
Ip route vrf QA 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.50.2.2

Does this look like it should fit the bill to allow me to have separate layer 3 routed networks that each have separate default routes?

My second question is hardware related... I have 2 devices that I would like to uplink entirely into this 4900M environment, however they only support 10gbit with SFP+ connectivity.  I can get 10gbit fiber SFP's however they are enforced to the manufacturer (confirmed) and run about $1800 a piece.  I know there are some funky requirements with the twingig x2 adaptors.  Does anyone have experience with the OneX x2 adaptors to present SFP+ out of the built in onboard X2 interfaces?  With this being DEV/QA and me trying to be cheap, has anyone used the off brand modules for this?

Thanks in advance!
Blake