Cisco 4510-R Switching Module Question

[bmiller2323]

Hello,

I know this might be an elementary question, but I have searched and can't find an answer for it.

I have a Cisco 4510R with 5 switching modules. Would it help my network to keep different parts of it on different modules? IE: servers on one module, clients on another module. Or is all bandwidth handled the same throughout the switch?

I have the following:

2 - WS-x4516 Supervisor V Cards

5 - WS-X4548-GB-RJ45

Thanks,

Brandon

[acampbell]

Hi,

Look at the data sheet for your card.
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/interfaces-modules/catalyst-4500-series-line-cards/product_data_sheet0900aecd802109ea.html

Fig 21

WS-X4548-GB-RJ45:

●   48 ports

●   10/100/1000 module (RJ-45)

●   Cisco IOS Software Release 12.1(19)EW or later

●   IEEE 802.3x flow control

●   Bandwidth is allocated across six 8-port groups, providing 1 Gbps per port group

●   Enterprise and commercial: designed for gigabit to the desktop

Your card is from classical (older) category.
So 6 x 8 groups that means there are 6 ASICs that each have connectivity to the chassis backplane.
IE// The ports share 6Gig of bandwidth.

The ports are broken up with 1-8 on ASIC 1, 9-16 on ASIC 2 etc etc.

So you can sse you would not want to put your servers on ports 1-5 , better to space them out accross the ASICs.

(The card is really designed for user desktop connections)

For the SUP V
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-4500-series-switches/product_data_sheet09186a00801fcaba.html

Again this is a classical supervisor and also has 6Gig connectivity to the backplane so the 2 x 1Gig ports have ample bandwidth to operate
together at full tilt .

Hope this helps
Regards
Alex

[Reza Sharifi]

Brandon,

It is good idea to put the servers in one module or even 2 and the put the clients in different modules.

So for example:

module 1 and 2 for servers.  Modules 3,4 and 5 for clients. This way if you lose one module you don't lose all the servers.

HTH

[Masoud Pourshabanian]

Hello,

Please check acampbell answer for detail information about your module. I experienced slow throughput in this module. Each ASIC will drop the traffic exceeding 1G in group of 6 and dropping  is not obvious to be noticed since it is done by ASIC.

If have enough port density, team your server NICs with 2 swithport to achieve 2G and leave the next 4 ports empty and then start from the next 6 group. And you can also use two different modules for teaming purpose to acheive better fault tolerance.

Masoud