Hi,
We are in the process of looking at upgrading our eight year old Cisco network to something newer.
Currently we have a 6500 for core/distribution with about 40+ 1 gig fibre links running out to access layer switches. (3560 and 3560X)
The whole design is routed with the links from core/distribtion to access all being layer 3. The intent was to dual attach access layer switches to 6500s in two buildings but this was never actually implemented.
The new design uses 3650 switches at the access layer, and a recommendation to use the 6880-X for core/distribution. This time around key buildings will be dual attached and I expect we will keep the routed design. 9396PX will be introduced at the datacenter layer.
It looks to be like the 6880-X is a pretty limited unit. No real path to 40 or 100 gig, no redundant supervisors, just a big box of 10 Gig ports.
I am assuming the cost on a 6807 chassis is just going to be too high, although 40 G and 100G are either available today or on the roadmap.
I am trying to figure out why two 4500-X with Enterprise software in VSS mode isn't a better fit. The port count is good at 80 (between the two), it has more bandwidth, features like MACSEC and SGT are on the develpment radar (if not already implemented), and two of these in VSS means I can perform a firmware update with minimal down time.
I plan to implement ISE in 2015 so having a platform that is going to work with ISE is really important to me.
Thanks
Murray
