CISCO 2960-X Switches and Server with 4 NIC's

[ranimbouraoui]

Hello,

I have an IBM Server with 4 NIC's and 3 CISCO 2960-X 48 Port PoE Switches, my question is about the best architecture I can use with the hardware I have in order to get a good networking performance, the 3 switches are separated, each one in different room, I have two scenarios,

Senario 1,

NIC1 connected to a Firewall, and the other 3 NIC's are teamed and each of them are connected to one switch (the 3 switches are not interconnected, so all of them connected to the server)

Senario 2,

NIC1 connected to a Firewall and the the other 3 NIC's are teamed also but connected to Switch 1. Switch 2 and 3 are connected to Switch 1

wich scenario works best?

Thanks.

[Leo Laohoo]

wich scenario works best?

If you've got a server with two (or more) NICs then I'll have to presume the server is a "high speed" variety which has little tolerance to network delays.  If the answer is a "yes", then either scenario is doomed to fail because Catalyst switches are NOT designed for a job like this.  What will happen is the amount of data being projected by the server will easily overwhelm the very-shallow buffer of the Catalyst switch and the interface counter of Output Drops will increment quickly. 

[ranimbouraoui]

Thanks Leo for your answer,

The idea is to make the 3 switches like clients to the server (Internal, DC, DHCP/DNS Server) with the 4 NIC's, so I want the 3 switches to act like a bridge to clients (CISCO WLC, CISCO AP's, Smartphones, Laptops, Printers..) without performance loose, in addition, as we got new big office, we have each switch installed in different room in order to relay the different parts of the office, and all of them are related to a main room where the Server, Switch 1, WLC are installed, so my need is to have my IBM Server with 3 NIC's a DHCP server for all the clients at the office through the switches I have.