3560 switches, differences

[RHorsnell]

Hi,

I have been looking at deploying a small core switch design for an important branch office that would consist of 2 cores with an etherchannel link and then 4 POE access switches linked to both cores utilising STP. I will also want static IP routing on the cores and will set up HSRP for gateway failover.

The initial switch I looked at for the core was WS-C3560E-24TD-S however after finding that there is no stock around of this at the moment I have seen the WS-C3560X-24T-S which looks like it will do everything I need including IP routing, HSRP and QoS for VOIP. The thing that concerns me is this is about £1000 cheaper so i'm slightly worried im missing someting. Any help in identifying this would be much apprciated?

Many thanks,

[mario_kmc · Accepted solution]

Hi RHorsnell,

First of all 3560E are end of life and the 3560X is the replacement for it so you should go for it. Don't believe you will have any feature shortcomings.

Basically I understand 3560X are an evolution of 3560E  switches. But they have some modularity. 3560X you won't  have gigabit  or 10gigabit uplinks unless you order them if you need to. 3560E came  with fixed 10gigabit uplinks.

I also read somewhere that 3560X are more energy efficient.

From 3560X Q&A 2nd question:

Q. What is new in the Cisco Catalyst 3750-X and 3560-X Series Switches?

A. The Cisco Catalyst X-Series switches build on the E-Series switches and add the following features:

• Cisco StackPower™  technology, available only on the Cisco Catalyst 3750-X (requires IP  Base), manages power very efficiently by aggregating and sharing power  supplies across a stack of switches. It also supports a feature known as  Zero-Footprint RPS.

• Field-replaceable network module provides 4 x 1 Gigabit and 2 x 10 Gigabit uplink interfaces for the switch.

• Full 802.3at PoE+ support provides 30W per port on all 48 ports in a single rack unit (RU) switch.

• New LAN Base feature set offers comprehensive Layer 2 functionality.

• Dual redundant power supplies and fans:  Four high-efficiency power supply options are available, including a DC  power supply for PoE applications. Two redundant, field-replaceable fan  modules are also included.

• MACsec  provides hardware-based encryption (802.1ae) at line rate on all 48  ports (requires IP Base). Includes MACsec Key Agreement (MKA) (included  in Dot1X-rev).

Hope I could help

Regards

Mario

[RHorsnell]

Thanks for the reply, looks like they'll do the job.

Cheers

[mario_kmc]

Glad to help RHorsnell.

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MP

[Leo Laohoo]

Just want to make it clear that you are NOT going to implementing MPLS/Full VRF now or in the future, right?

[RHorsnell]

No intentions for that but thanks for the heads up.

[DivakaranV]

hi - what will happen if we do the MPLS/FULL VRF is that not supporting?

[Joseph W. Doherty]

I recall (?) none of 3560/3750 series support MPLS, but do support VRF-Lite.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

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You might want to consider stacking a pair of 3750-Xs in lieu of a pair of 3560-Xs.