Distribution/Core with 48+ SFP+

[mateja.jovanovic]

Ok, so here´s the situation we´ve got here: A client with 3 offices, 2 of them within 5 km range, and the 3rd one at 20km distance, SM FO between them.

1st office: 110 of 3750x distributed into 32 Stacks

2nd office: 80 of 3750x distributed into 35 Stacks

3rd office (the one 20km away) - 15 swithces in 5 stacks

All the connections to the distribution layer need to be 10G. 2 questions

1. We were planning to go with 4500E/6500E and VSS, but with so many SFP+ it gets really expensive. Then maybe one of the 3k Nexuses, but not they´re far better for a DC Access then campus distribution... and no VSS/Stack there... Any experience with this?

2. Whats the best practice for Access Stack and Distribution Interconnection? I´m referring to the cabling, cause if I´ve got 6 Stacked 3750X, is it better regarding price/quality to form like two 1-pair Etherchannels (4 cables), or two 2-pair etherchannels (8 cables)? I know the second solution is better, but... is there some kind of official calculus here?

Thanks in advance!!! 

[Joseph W. Doherty]

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Posting

Have you considered the 4500-X or 6880 for 10g distribution?

Unless your access is pushing/pulling lots of data, for capacity, a single 10g will probably be more than ample.  Knowing this, your second uplink is really needed more for redundancy than capacity.  So, you might consider using a gig link for the backup.  Unfortunately, don't believe you can Etherchannel 10g with gig.

If you do want to stay with 10g Etherchannel, again for an access switch, it's hard to imagine you would need more than dual 10g.