Expanding office - Connecting 3650 to 3750's

[ianmstewart]

I am expanding an office which currently has 3 x 3650 switches (18 months old). I need to add 2 more switches. I have been told by 1 supplier that we need to replace all the 3650 with 3750's as they would not recommend mixing models. I need to understand is the supplier telling the truth or can I order 2 3750's and expand the existing network.

The network will have to connect between 2 wiring closet's (50m apart), which I have asked both Cat6 cables and Fibre to be run between them.

Any advise would be great.

Thanks

Ian

[Peter Paluch]

Hello Ian,

You probably mean Catalysts 3560 (not 3650).

I do not agree with the supplier's recommendation. There is no reason why your existing 3560 should be replaced with 3750 switches just to "avoid mixing models". Perhaps with some vendors, this makes sense, but certainly not in this particular case. You can safely interconnect Catalysts 3560 with 3750 without any worries about compatibility or cooperation issues.

Best regards,

Peter

[Ivan Krimmel]

Ian, Peter,

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps5718/ps5023/end_of_life_c51-687707.html

FYI :)

I do agree with Peter, there's no such a thing like 'bad coexistence', both models are perfectly compatible in terms of switching, though you couldn't end up in a stack with different models.

Also I think that 3750 are more expensive, thus I'd check with the supplier what they meant exactly ;)

[Joseph W. Doherty]

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Posting

To further confirm what the other posts have stated, I work in an environment that uses both 3560s and 3750s, they "play nice together".

As Ivan has further described, a 3750 can be stacked (up to nine) allowing the stack of switches to be configured and operate as a single switch.  A nice feature, but as Ivan also noted, adds to their cost.

Regarding your question about using fiber or copper for cross connects for a 50m run, although fiber has some advantages, optimally both will provide gig bandwidth but the copper, without needing SFP modules, at a much lower cost.

[ianmstewart]

Thanks everyone for your comments and they have all been very helpful.

With the info I can go back to the suppliers and be able to challenge them. Hopefully we can come to an agreement to just add then extra switches to the network. This should also be able to reduce the cost of the network kit by 50%. Always a good thing.

Thanks again.

[Ivan Krimmel]

Hey Ian,

feel free to engage your suppliers into this thread in case any further discussion will take place ;)

BR,

Ivan.