L2 across DC's

[scarriveau]

Recently we had a vendor come in and recommend that we extend pure Layer 2 links across our cores and over the WAN.  As far as I've ever known it's not a good practice to extend Layer 2 across the core let alone a WAN connection if it can be helped.  I know there are a number of technologies out there such as OTV, VPLS, and Fabric Path that are designed as DC interconnects but what was proposed was just simply a link running at Layer 2.  So my question becomes is this a trend that others are starting to see becoming more common?  If so what is the reasoning as to why/why not?  I have a lot of reservations about this proposed solution because it seems to go against everything that I know.  Any help would be appreciated.

-Shaun

[tmatthews2]

The guy I replaced at my current gig ordered a 200 MB L2 circuit connecting my two DC's.  There are no routers, only L3 on the cores.  So I am struggling to reverse engineer what his thought process was.

My thinking is that this is not the best way to do it.  I personally would have extended a VLAN over L3 using routers on each side so I not only have DR between sites but another route out.

But these are the cards I have been dealt, so I have to play them.