Wan Aggregation switch

Hi All,
I'm trying to select the best switch to terminate a number of WAN connections in our data centre.
We currently have a mixture of 1Gbps point-to-point Ethernet circuits, MPLS circuits and private DSL circuits coming into our primary data centre. These are all currently terminating on our core switches and I want to move these to a dedicated layer.
All I need to support is full EIGRP and multicast routing. Advanced QoS capabilities are not a must at the moment.
I'm considering the Cisco 3750 Metro Ethernet switch but I was wondering if there are any newer or better devices that are suitable for this? Also I can only see the 3750 Metro with 10/100 Mbps port. Is it available with 1Gbps ports?
Any assistance is greatly appreciated

Thank you for the quick response.
I will checkout the ME3800X.
I have also just been looking at the 3750X and 3650 range switches as well. Will these work ok or any concerns for this type of role?

Similar Messages

What are the major differences between a Access Switch and Aggregation Switch w.r.t Carrier Ethernet domain?

In a Carrier Ethernet domain,Could someone please help me understand what's the basic difference between Access Switch and Aggregation Switch both in terms of s/w and h/w functionalities. MEF deals OAM,CFM, EVC provisioning only at the access edge switches. Do we need to repeat all these at the aggregation level? or is it just used for routing purpose? Do we have a separate Fault Management at the aggregation level?

Duplicate posts. :P
Go here: https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12137156/what-are-major-differences-between-access-switch-and-aggregation-switch-wrt

Design thoughts: Replacing a L2 aggregation switch

Hi,
I have purchased a 4507R switch to replace a 2924M-XL switch that acts as an aggregation switch in our network. Let me explain further what I plan to do.
I have 20 remote sites connected point to point via 100 Mbps dark fibre to the 2924M-XL. Most of the sites have only a handful of users but 5 of them are bigger (ie. 20-70 users). Some of the larger remote sites (small campuses really) have 2-5 switches in a star topology with the "hub" switch connecting back to the 2924M-XL. Each site has 1 or 2 user VLANs and a management VLAN. The 2924M-XL trunks all VLANs back to a 6513 at the core of our network.
I will be connecting the 4507R along 2 seperate dark fibre runs (for layer 1 redundancy) to 2 6513s in our core. This will give us fault-tolerence should our primary 6513 fail.
My problem is I'm struggling with the decision to go layer 2 or layer 3 between the 4507R and the 6513s. Layer 2 would be alot easier to implement and support (I'm the sole administrator of this rather large network) but then I'd have RSTP to deal with among the 2 6513s and 4507. I'm comfortable with RSTP since I run it between 2950G switches dual connected to the 6513s but my gut feeling is that I should be putting in layer 3 between the 6513s and the 4507.
We will be implementing VoIP is the next 2 years and I'm unsure how that affects my decision.
One last comment. Would layer 2 trunking of VLANs from the 4507 to the 6513s WITHOUT trunking these VLANs between the 6513s be a viable optionand would HSRP between the 2 6513s still work OK for layer 3 redundany? The remotes sites are setup with unique user VLANs but there is a special use VLAN that spans 4 of the sites and my manegement VLAN spans all the sites (I'm planning to change this).
Thanks everyone for your thought/opinions.
Ian.

Hi there Ian,
I'm a big fan of routing over switching, which I read is becoming Cisco's recommended way of doing things.
I would route between the 2 x 6513's and the 4507 as it will not only give you fault tolerance, but also load balancing, plus cutting down on broadcast domains and all those other nice things.
As far as configuration goes, onec you've got it up and running, then it'll just keep running. It seems like you will only need straight forward routing here and nothing too complex. Setting it up would be a simple affair.
VoIP, in my experience, is much better implemented over a routed network than a switched one. There are loads more things that you can do at layer 3 than you can at layer 2. Think about all the QoS that you'll be able to implement, with shaping and policing, etc. Much more security can be built in at layer 3 too. You'll get the likes of NBAR and all other features that you'll be able to (over time) tweak you network with.
As for performance, you'll never spot a difference. The 4507 will be lots faster than the 2924 and using cef, the 4507 will keep a forwarding table for ip's the same way a 2900 keeps a mac table.
You will not regret routing it.
Hope this helps - if so, please give it a rating.
LH

6504E Aggregation Switch (VS-C6504E-S720-10G)

Hi,
I am in the process of understanding the 6504E in terms of technically feasible option as a Provider Class Aggregation Switch. (specifically looking at VS-C6504E-S720-10G, which is bundled option)
This 6504E switch will aggregate our Provider Edge (PE) routers and then connect to Core routers via uplink ports. Multiple PE routers (each via 1G port) would be aggregated to 6504E. The aggregation switch would then connect to core routers via 10G uplink port.
While short listing the aggregation switch, I come across VS-C6504E-S720-10G which has Catalyst Chassis + Fan Tray+Sup720-10G; IP Base ONLY; NO VSS. Though this looks a better choice for provider class switch .But, I am still not clear if this bundle option can support all the below requirements.
1. Multiple 1Gig/10Gig for Access/Uplink on aggregation - this is supported.
2. OIR feature for line card , modules, power supply - this is supported.
Not sure if VS-C6504E-S720-10G support all the below mandatory requirement
3. Traffic from PE will be MPLS labelled or non-MPLS labelled traffic so Aggregation Switch must have capable to look MPLS header ( i.e Lable, MPLS EXP bit) and IP header ( dscp, src SA, dst SA etc) when configured as Layer 2 port facing to PE - Not sure if VS-C6504E-S720-10G can support it.
4. Aggregation switch should support link aggregation for N*10G uplink to Core router with various load-balancing method like MPLS label based, src-IP, dst-IP, src-dst-IP, hashing of layer 3 and layer 4 info , L2 S-mac & d-mac etc - - Not sure if VS-C6504E-S720-10G can support it.
5. QOS on L2 switches for strict priority queue, WRR/SRR Queue to support policing and shaping with WRED with miinimum 8 egress queue per port.
6. QoS classification based on 802.1P, MPLS EXP, IP DSCP on layer 2 ports for MPLS and non MPLS traffic.
7. Multicast - IGMP V1/V2/V3, IGMP Snooping, PIM snooping.

Pradeep,
This is a loaded question. I would suggest you get in touch with the system engineer assigned to your company in order for him to run through all these requirements and validate that this piece of equipment meets them all.
Regards

Wake on (wan) iMac switched off, is it possible?

When I was a pc user I used to wake up my pc using wake on lan/wan feature.
With mac I can wake up the imac when it is asleep without any problem, but I can't when it is switched off; with pc is possible even when it is shutdown
Is it possible with Mac too? How?

Hello A:
In answer to your question, to my knowledge no.
Barry

T540p WAN/LAN switching

T540p - connected via ethernet cable. Fine. Move to meeting room so I disconnect cable - ThinkPad switches over to the WAN. Great. But, when I return and reconnect the cable - the WAN connection stays active. On the HP laptops we have, when the LAN cable is connected, the WAN auto disables.
Is there such a feature on this ThinkPad? And I'm not looking to manually dis/re-enable the WAN.
Thank you
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Solution might depend of the OS and connection manager you are using.
x220 | i5-2520m | Intel ssd 320 series | Gobi 2000 3G GPS | WiFi
x220 | i5-2520m | hdd 320 | Intel msata ssd 310 series | 3G GPS | WiFi
Do it well, worse becomes itself
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Nexus aggregation switching

Hi All
Need abit help in implementing Nexus 5548UP and NExus 2K fex configuration, basicallay i have end of 2 row switching with Nexus 5K, is it wise to dual home nexus 2k to single 5K ??
Please help
Kumar

Hi Chien-Hsing Wu, I just ran into this post, sorry I couldn´t reply to your original one. Since I did not see an explanation on how to get 960 Mpps, I included one for you:
The 960 Mpps number you mentioned is calculated taking in account modules with one M1 forwarding engine, which is the case for modules such as N7K-M132XP-12, for example. Other modules use a M1 forwarding engine (some newer modules use even 2 forwarding engines).
The "M1" indicates the forwarding engine is M Series, first generation and is capable of delivering 60 Mpps of Layer 2 and 3 IPv4 unicast or 30 Mpps of IPv6 unicast for all ports on that module.
You can use up to 16 I/O Modules on the 7018, which brings the 16 (forwarding engines)* 60 (mpps if M1) = 960 Mpps.
Be aware that more recent modules use even dual M1-XL forwarding engines, delivering 120 Mpps L2 and 3 IPv4 unicast or 60 Mpps IPv6, and others use F1 forwarding engines, delivering 480 Mpps of distributed L2 unicast per module.
On the other hand, regarding the calculations you suggest with 230 Gbps, some documentation shows 7.8 Tbps as total switching capacity for the 7018. You get that number assuming you are using Fabric 1 modules, or Fabric modules from 1st generation. If this is the case, calculation is as follows:
     230 Gbps per slot for the I/O related slots
     115 Gbps for the supervisors
     (16 * 230) + (2 * 115) = 3910 Gbps, and taking in account full duplex transmission we multiply this by 2 and get the 7.8 Tbps.
As mentioned by Amit Singh, if we use Fabric 2 modules each slot could *potentially* use 550 Gbps (depending on the module), which is the total crossbar bandwidth available for each slot if your chassis is equiped with 5 Fabric 2 modules, as opposed to the 230 Gbps when the fabric modules are 1st generation modules.
HTH
Leo Pastor

Mars: trouble resolving switch ports

Our MARS device seems to be up and running correctly. Most of our equipment seems to be correctly configured and appears in the topology. However, when an incident occurs MARS does not list the switch the device is connected to. How would I go about troubleshooting this problem?
Also, I have an unknown device reporting to MARS. Is there a report can use to find the IP address of the unknown device? I suspect I have the reporting address wrong on one of our routers and would like to be able to figure out which one it is.
Sorry, if these are "newb" questions, but I am new to MARS and there doesn't seem to be as many troubleshooting documents as compared to other cisco devices.
Thanks for your help.

Hi Tim,
No worries about asking newbie questions here.
These are my thoughts regarding your questions and hopefully some of the other Net Pros will join in.
Firstly, the amount of time that is required to tune the MARS system will vary depending on how the network is set up, and how much the single devices are tuned. In an environment with devices tuned at a medium level, it can take 8 to 12 weeks to have the MARS appliance adjusted.
You didn't mention what types of reporting you were doing but I'll assume you have NetFlow, Syslog and SNMP running on your network. With regards to Netflow, ideally NetFlow information should be collected from the distribution switches and routers. These devices, together with NetFlow from Internet-facing routers or syslog from firewalls, represent the entire network.
Just a word of caution on Netflow. You do not want nor need to turn it on for every networking device. Otherwise you will get multiple copies of the same info. Where you want to turn it on is at logical aggregation points, like your distribution layer, or WAN aggregation router.
Secondly, the term âUnknown Reporting Deviceâ is a discrepancy between the defined IP on the MARS and the reported IP that it receives via syslog.
To determine if a device is sending information to MARS do an Inline Query of Reporting Device Ranking.
The Unknown Device Report is located by clicking on the Query / Reports pull down menu and selecting it from the System Reports.
Run an âUnknown Event Reportingâ query/report, and verify that there are no devices
reporting to MARS with an âunknown reporting IPâ. This means that MARS is parsing correctly
the logs from all the devices and they have been set up correctly. Repeat the same sequence for all subsets of your network that you have identified, until all devices have been added. Repeat the test periodically to make sure that all devices are configured correctly. A good idea is to set an hourly or periodic report to be e-mailed with the list of unknown reporting IPs.
When the network has been fully configured and no âunknown reporting IPsâ are reported for
some time, you can then remove the report, or to change it to a longer period of time.
Hope this helps and that you keep asking questions.
Best,
Paul

Small DC Switch Design

Hello,
I'm working on options for a small DC switch design. This DC has 5
virtual hosts with 10-20 guest vm's each. Each server has two quad
port gig nics with 6 of the 8 gig ports connected (3 for iSCSI and 3
for data or management. It also has two 3 node sans each with 2 gig
ports per node, a host of other small servers including voice servers,
management servers, asa firewall, and a few routers. Total of 50-60
ports as of right now.
Connected to the DC is 7 other buildings each with there own 1 gig
fiber connection serving about 3000 devices in total including
desktops, laptops, ip phones, wireless ap's, building automation,
alarm panels, etc....
Right now in each of the 7 buildings has a 3560G as an aggregation
switch connected back to the DC. The DC also has a few 3560G's and
3750G's for the sans and servers. The system seems to work ok for the
most part aside from micro bursts overwhelming the buffers on these
switches and the etherchannel trunks between them dropping a minor
amount of packets. QOS is configured for the voice network and there
are little to no complaints.
What I would like to know (costs being the biggest factor) is what
would be a better switch design for the current and future traffic in
this network. Some options I was thinking about are as follows:
I would needs at least 96 ports.
So option A is to go with a 4506-E bundle with 2 48 port line cards,
sup 6l-e and a WS-X4712-SFP+E or something of the sorts.   And then
upgrade to the enterprise services license and do all of the routing
and switching for the DC on this one switch. Means little redundancy
and no failover.
Option B was to go with the same 4506-E bundle, without the extra
license and without the SFP line card and put in some sort of layer
three aggregation switch, possibly an me3600x.
Option C Is to go with the 4503-E, the SFP line card and the IP
Enterprise services license. And two top of rack switches, either
2360's or 4948's.
I would like to do some PBR on the aggregation switch, but I am unsure if the me3600x is capable of doing that.
I have no experience in this matter so any other thoughts or
suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Dan.

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If cost is the biggest factor, and the only notable issue now is occasional packet drops due to insufficient buffers, perhaps some buffer tuning would be something to consider.
A really important question to answer is how important redundancy. At lower port densities (3 to 4 stack members), the switch stack is less expensive than a chassis that supports redundancy. At very low port densities (2 to 3 stack members) the stack might be less expensive than even a non-redundant chassis.
BTW, the 3750-E/X offers much more performance than the original 3750 series. If offers wire-speed PPS and fabric per switch, twice the ring bandwidth and uses the ring, for unicast, much "smarter".
Perhaps a dual WS-C3750X-12S or WS-C3750X-24S for your core with dual MEC fiber etherchannl links to your aggregation switches? In the DC itself, you might also use 2960s to provide DC edge ports. For growth, a dual 3750-X stack would support four 10 gig ports which could be used with 10 gig servers or 10 gig SAN or as a 10gig link to other DC switches, such as the 2960S (which support their own stacking technology).

Campus User Tracking Quick report of wan location

Hi All,
I have one WAN location for which I am not getting campus user tracking for the end host.
I added all the WAN location switches in cisco works and getting logging report. But when
I tried to pull up end host report via IP ADDRESS or hostname it says end host not found.
Any help would be appriciated.
Thanks in advance.
Samir

Do the end hosts show up by MAC? Can you search for end hosts based on the remote switch name or IP? In order for UT to display IP information, the ARP cache of the remote router needs to be populated and pollable via SNMP. That means the remote router needs to be managed by Campus Manager.

Scripted backup of ESW series switches

We recently purchased some of the ESW-540 Cisco switches for some lower end access ports. I'd like to script the configuration backup using Kiwicat if possible, but haven't figured out how to either get into the cli, or config kiwicat to backup via webui.
With the SRW Linksys line you could hit ctrl-z and type lcli to get into the cli interface.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks..

Nothing to do with the UC - primary concern is standalone networks.
Real life case:
2 ESW switches in control room hooked up to SA540
Closet switches are SRW2008's
Port no more than two devices are supposed to go now has 4, add an SRW2008 to the desk location.
Now, it turns out that there is a badly behaved device at the desk - a video player that spews all sorts of traffic when it's playing that doesn't play nice with others. So I now need to set-up a VLAN crossing those two switches. Oh, and it turns out the customer decided to unplug an access point and plug it into that switch too which ended up causing a loop when the PC plugged into ethernet someplace else attached to the PC.
Tasks:
Ensure that the 2 SRW2008's have proper vlan assignments to setup a port vlan for that video server.
Issues:
Make sure you assign proper configs to both ends of each link
Make sure not to confuse one SRW2008 with another
If new vlan, make sure all other ports that need to see it can still see it.
Applications for CCA:
Visualize all VLANS
Document port assignments (i.e. where is the video server vs. printer on that last leg 2008)
More easily see port statistics across multiple switches
So after I did that work, I realized that the SA540 wasn't really up to being an aggregation switch too and made the ESW-540-48 into the aggregation switch which required some more changes - however CCA made it easy...
At another job, I have SA540 + AP541ns (upgraded from RVL200 + WAP54GP's) but if I had 300 series in CCA, I'd upgrade the SRW2024's and SRW2008's but without easy management tools, the labor cost will be too high to make their networks really managed.....CCA makes that layer of management cheaper.

Polycom V500 over WAN and QoS

we are trying to run two polycoms over WAN. One side is able to see the other while the other side cannot. The side that is unable to see the other has the following QoS setup on the WAN interface:
srr-queue bandwidth share 10 10 60 20
srr-queue bandwidth shape 10 0 0 0
queue-set 2
msl qos trust dscp
auto qos voip trust

Your configuration is not from a WAN port but from a LAN port. Please note that just because the service provider hands you an Ethernet port, that does not mean you can use any old LAN switch to connect to it. The service provider is using Ethernet to keep their costs down but it is still a WAN port and requires a WAN interface on your terminating equipment to properly schedule and queue the traffic.
Examples of a WAN Ethernet (FastEthernet, GigabitEthernet) port are most any ISR router, a Catalyst Metro switch (i.e. 3750-METRO), the WAN blades on a 6500 switch (not LAN blades!), or the Ethernet WAN/Metro SPA adapters for a 6500/7600 SIP module.
Note that a LAN switch assumes high speed interfaces and not much of a speed mismatch between ports. A LAN port connected to a slow WAN will not be able to buffer anywhere close to amount of traffic that comes through the switch to this port and will cause a HOL (head of line) blocking scenario; and this assumes you setup the port speed and shaping/sharing parameters correctly.
A LAN switch port output buffers are measured in K and will handle 4 to 10 packets of bursting; on the other hand, a WAN port's output buffers are measured in M and will handle thousands of packets of burst.
The effects can be staggering. It is not uncommon for a service provider WAN/MAN to be terminated with a bunch of cheap LAN switches that drop upwards of 90% of the traffic destined for the WAN! Just because of lack of buffers on the output queue side and massive oversubscription between the LAN side and the WAN side, using a LAN port.
And we haven't even started talking about traffic shaping yet to match the speed of transmission from a WAN port to that of the contracted rate such that it doesn't exceed the speed on the receiving side.
Remember, regardless of the size of the WAN port (T1, E1, DS-3, OC-3, 10Mb, 100Mb, 1000Mb), the 'width' of the connection is serial and still only 1 bit wide. Just the rate of bits being sent per second is different.
The key concept that often gets lost is if you have a GigabitEthernet port on a LAN switch connected to a WAN or MAN in which you are purchasing 200Mb of service, you are, by definition, dropping 80% of the traffic in the service provider network (or at the ingress port to the service provider!). This is regardless of how 'busy' or utilized the GigabitEthernet link is. A single packet of data, say 500 bytes, will be sent out the GigabitEthernet port at 1 *billion* bits per second. Unfortunately, you may only have paid for 200 *million* bits per second as your contracted access to the service provider's network. Trust me, the service provider will deal with this discrepancy by policing 80% of your data to the bit bucket and they don't care what type of data it is.
So it doesn't matter how much data you are sending, a 1% utilized WAN connection using a LAN switch in this way could still be dropping 80% (or more) of the traffic!
A final note: Please don't be confused by most switch vendor's terminology regarding shaping or sharing of multiple limited output queue resources on their LAN switches, this is *NOT* the same thing as traffic shaping or long queues on a WAN router port or WAN/METRO switch port. This includes Cisco. This is why Cisco (and Juniper and Foundry, etc.) sell switches with METRO or WAN interfaces on them and why they are more expensive than LAN only switches.

Difference between OSM-2+4GE-WAN+ and 7600-SIP-400

hy guys,
If I want to use one of them as uplink, which are better ?

Depending on your current and future requirements the decision for SIP-400 or OSM-GEWAN needs to be taken.
As they both are different product sets meant to cater to different set of business requirements.
SIP-400
a) Provides you with capability to aggregate different flavours of
OC12,OC48 and other WAN and GE Interfaces as well as use them for uplink,
b) Supports VPLS
c) Supports MQC with conventional QOS.
d) Supports ATM Cell Relay.
e) Occupies 1 slot space
OSM-GEWAN.
a) Provides only Gigabit aggregation and uplink.
b) Supports VPLS.
c) Doesnt support ATM Cell Relay.
d) Supports MQC and conventional QOS.
e) Occupies 1 slot space,
Above are some difference in summary.
But if you requirement is to have only Gig aggregation and Gig uplinks then OSM
by far is a good choice. But if you have your aggregation done, and are looking for WAN aggregation with Enchanced features like conventional QOS and VPLS, Cell Relay etc, with the option if choosing the media types for your aggregation, then SIP-400 is vis-a-vis a good choice.
This comparision doesnt take into consideration the throughput performance of both categories vis-a-vis.
HTH-Cheers,
Swaroop

CCA for 100 + 300 series switches?

Is it in the roadmap to provide CCA control over 300 series switches? We have a lot of SRW2008's put in before the 8-port ESW existed...and we have PITA vlan consistency issues out there too that I think CCA would help fix.
While I understand the "don't pre-announce products", I need a level of design intent around CCA - is it a tool for configuring UC series pieces primarily and all else is secondary? Or is it the multi-device config tool for all SBCS pieces?

Nothing to do with the UC - primary concern is standalone networks.
Real life case:
2 ESW switches in control room hooked up to SA540
Closet switches are SRW2008's
Port no more than two devices are supposed to go now has 4, add an SRW2008 to the desk location.
Now, it turns out that there is a badly behaved device at the desk - a video player that spews all sorts of traffic when it's playing that doesn't play nice with others. So I now need to set-up a VLAN crossing those two switches. Oh, and it turns out the customer decided to unplug an access point and plug it into that switch too which ended up causing a loop when the PC plugged into ethernet someplace else attached to the PC.
Tasks:
Ensure that the 2 SRW2008's have proper vlan assignments to setup a port vlan for that video server.
Issues:
Make sure you assign proper configs to both ends of each link
Make sure not to confuse one SRW2008 with another
If new vlan, make sure all other ports that need to see it can still see it.
Applications for CCA:
Visualize all VLANS
Document port assignments (i.e. where is the video server vs. printer on that last leg 2008)
More easily see port statistics across multiple switches
So after I did that work, I realized that the SA540 wasn't really up to being an aggregation switch too and made the ESW-540-48 into the aggregation switch which required some more changes - however CCA made it easy...
At another job, I have SA540 + AP541ns (upgraded from RVL200 + WAP54GP's) but if I had 300 series in CCA, I'd upgrade the SRW2024's and SRW2008's but without easy management tools, the labor cost will be too high to make their networks really managed.....CCA makes that layer of management cheaper.

DC WAE Design help

Attached is a visio of main DC WAN edge. Right now our WAE (7341) is placed directly off of ncmc-dc-rt01. Now we need to start to optimize traffice comming from all three top routers (ncmc-dc-rt01, ncmc-dc-rt05, and ncmc-dc-rt04). Were would be the best placement and IP address shceme for the WAE? Keep in mind the ncmc-dc-rt05 is a 3750g.

James,
I might consider putting the WAEs off the aggregation switches and doing hardware redirection (L2 redirect, mask assign, redirect in) on the 4900s. Otherwise you won't be able to use all three WAN routers as on will require L2 redirects and the other only support GRE.
Hope that helps,
Dan

Wan Aggregation switch

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