Design question with 3850s and 3750s

[Jason Flory]

Hello Everyone,

Currently our corporate office houses our data center for 14 offices plus local users in that office.  We are going to be upgrading to 3850s and wanted to know if there is someway to isolate data center type activities from the users in that office (other then vlans).  Currently we have a single stack supporting data center and users.  Everything is on different vlans but i keep thinking that it should be physically separated.

My question is how do the experts feel about sharing a cisco stack of 3750s or 3850s with users and data center?  Is there something i can do in the software for better protection against loops?  Should we have a separate stack for data center and users?

Thanks

[Reza Sharifi · Accepted solution]

Hi Jason,

Unfortunately, you can not combine 3750s and 3850s in one stack, as they use different type of interfaces and stacking cables. I would use 2 different stack of 3850s.  Use one for data center and the other one for users.  This way, if something happens to one of your stack, you don't loose everything.

HTH

[Leo Laohoo]

My question is how do the experts feel about sharing a cisco stack of 3750s or 3850s with users and data center?

Depends on your budget.

I'd keep Data Centre clients separate from the users.  DC clients can't tolerate any outages and they require hitless network. 

[Joseph W. Doherty · Accepted solution]

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Posting

"It depends".

If you want to minimize cost (i.e. fewer devices) and maximize performance (stack bandwidth vs. link bandwidth [especially the 3850s], keep everything on a single stack, if possible.

If you want to miminize the chance of some L2 error taking everything down, separate user from core and/or server via L3.

Besides VLANs, you might also use VRF for additional logical isolation on a single device (both don't protect much from CPU meltdown on the stack).

[Jason Flory]

Thanks Guys

I think i have got the approvals to get the funds to separate data center from user environment.