[c-nsp] "Core/AGG" switch for small DC

[CiscoNSP List]

Thanks very much for the info....got a couple of 4500X's(In VSS, and hasnt missed a beat in 2years), and I do like them...but price is getting up there...same with the Nexus kit...never used them, and would be a nice option to go with what you have described...just would mean replacing all the existing 4948's...unfortunately not an option at this stage :)

Ill re-check the 4500X's price....havent bought one in over 2 years, so I may be pleasantly suprised ;)




> Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2015 14:24:19 -0500
> From: brez at brezworks.com
> To: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net; p.mayers at imperial.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: [c-nsp] "Core/AGG" switch for small DC
> 
> On 3/26/2015 11:35 AM, CiscoNSP List wrote:
> >> For a datacentre, I'd pay attention to buffering. Cisco stackables tend
> >> to have tiny buffers (not sure about 3950), which may or may not be a
> >> problem for an agg switch, depending on your traffic patterns and link
> >> speeds, and whether the device does cut-through switching.
> >>
> >> How many ports and of what media/speed do you want? Do you need any DCB
> >> / FCoE stuff? Layer 2 or layer 3?
> >
> > Purely L2, all eth...Id like 2 separate agg boxes, but dual links from TOR switches, to 2 "independent" switches would be difficult (i.e. how to have all vlans go to both switches, and handle a failure of one of them "automatically"...all the cust vlans are trunked up to ME's and ASR's for L3.
> >
> If you've been happy with the 4948s, I'd look at the 4500X as a possible 
> aggregator for them.  16/32 ports of 1/10G (plus 8 on an expansion 
> module), support for all the optics and twinax options (with a few 
> caveats for ZR optics, but shouldn't be an issue within a DC).
> 
> They do support VSS, and it's been stable for us for ~18 months running 
> 10 floors worth of heavy users from closet 4507R+E's via 20Gb 
> port-channels as well as a large port-channel via EWDM boxes to our 
> data-center.  Mixed L2/L3 on ours, and other than having to order some 
> 3rd party PDU cables (C15s on these, not C13s, same as the PoE 3560X's) 
> they've been great for our use case.  We've got another pair running in 
> a colo space for circuit handoffs, and they've been rock solid boxes for 
> us.  They're basically a Sup7E from a 4500E with 16/32 ports of 10G 
> built into a 1U chassis, same code image and feature support as you'd 
> have on those.
> 
> The other option for a more traditional data-center switch would be the 
> Nexus 5500/5600 lines.  These are NX-OS rather than the IOS-XE of the 
> 4500X so there is a learning curve there if you aren't familiar with it, 
> but are 90% of the functionality you'd get out of a Nexus 7000/7700 
> device in a 1-3U package.  The 5500/5600s do VPC which allows you 
> dual-active forwarding and are a cut-through instead of traditional 
> store and forward switch.  The 5600s also have 40Gb ports available and 
> would allow you to use FEX's to replace some of the TOR 4948s and have 
> all management from one central point (can configure master/slave for 
> configs on the 5Ks in VPC mode, so you configure both switches as one 
> unit, same with VSS on the 4500X's).  The 5500/5600 are more limited on 
> their optics support (don't support any CWDM/DWDM or ER/ZR optics), but 
> are a solid data-center/TOR switch.
> 
> I've worked with both of these for several years, let me know if you 
> have any specific questions about either of them.
> 
> Jeremy "TheBrez" Bresley
> brez at brezworks.com
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