Differences in SD-Access capabilities among fabric-capable switches

[lburleso]

I currently own a significant number of 3650-series switches, which are listed as capable of becoming fabric-integrated with SD-Access.

What would we gain in this feature category by migrating to the Cat 9000-series?

[Jayesh Singh · Accepted solution]

Hello,

CAT9k switches are based on latest ASICs and are more scalable compared to CAT3k platforms. For eg. No. of VRFs supported on Cat3k is 64 while that on Cat9300 is 256.

In case of SDA, currently the VNs created in DNAC is pushed on all edges and this parameter becomes very crucial for large scale deployment.

Also note that if you have mix of CAT3k and CAT9k in your same fabric then DNAC considers lowest denominator for the fabric scale... Meaning maximum VNs you can have in your fabric would be 64(maximum supported on your CAT3k). So you should decide on the platform to start with considering future expansions of your fabric.

There are other performance differences as well in CAT9k compared to CAT3k like time taken to reboot and come into operational state is very less in cat9k, which are not relevant to SDA capabilities.

Hope that helps!

Regards,

Jayesh

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