Collapsed Core with Nexus 3524

[MafonsoPT]

Hi, I'm in the process of revamping a small DC for an enterprise environment. 

I had some quotes from diferent vendors (DELL, HP and Cisco) and a tight budget.

The Cisco solution initialy included a pair of Nexus 5548 for the collapsed core and c2960s for the access layer.  To fit the bill this was revised to Nexus 3524 and SG500X respectively.

My concern with the 3524s is that I don't find many references of this being used for a collapsed core design, as I've seen with 5548s.    Maybe the lack of vPC is on of the reasons.

Hoppefully this feature will come along the way, but in the meanwhile I would need an alternative.  

Could I just stack these 3524 and use regular etherchannels to uplink the SG500 stacks? 

Anyone using a collapsed core design with theese equipment?

[Collin Clark]

In my opinion that's a pretty bad product selection. You would be putting a switch that is designed for top-of-rack data center and using it as a core/distro and then linking SMB switches for the access layer. Yikes. There are always options but without knowing the customer requirements and budget it's hard for us to help come up with a solution. The only Nexus I put in a core are the 7K's and even then there is criteria that needs to be fulfilled for that to be an option. Never a 5K, never.

[MafonsoPT]

Thanks!

The budget is pretty tight and the available budget barely fits such a cenario, let alone the ideal scenario :) 

In an ideal world scenario I would for sure choose products designed for the intended role. But in this real world situation it is down to a great level of compromise to try to fit a Cisco solution or taking the path of brands like huawei and the likes.

So as long as this products give the required funcionality (and I don't need an imense throughtput here) I will be fine.

So the question is more in the line of "will this do it" rather than "is this suitable". 

[Marwan ALshawi]

For sure you can use the 5548 with L3 as a collapsed core/distribution for a small DC

however I would say if you can use Nexus 2K for the access as a ToR will be better than 2900 switches 

hope this helps

[MafonsoPT]

Thanks.  The 5548 I'm pretty sure they will do. I've this setup before and fits nicely for small enviroments. A tipical IT company with arround 200 developers. 

My access layer here is targeted for client end stations. The plan is to use SG500X stacks (12 units) for these.  These core will provide connectivity to the existing racks (2-3) with existent ToR (DELL, I believe) that I cannot change for now. 

My plan is try to migrate everything to a Cisco solution, starting with a Nexus 3K for the core and SMB devices for the client access. At a later stage I might get the budget to replace the existing ToRs with the 3K and replace the existing 3K with maybe a 5K, reusing the current investment.

So my concern is; will the N3524 do it? Featurewise is equivalent to the 5K series, apart from throughtput/latency?