Looking for ideas/tips on core switch refresh.

[Francisco Granados]

Hi All,

Route/Switch is not my bread and butter so I am looking for ideas and advice on how to proceed with a refresh. 

I am refreshing our core from a stack of 3750-Xs to a pair of Nexus 3ks. L3 is done at the core switch, so I am planning on the switches having mostly the same configuration, with the same IP addressing schemes.

Our servers are directly attached to the Core, so I am expecting some downtime but I'd like to minimize as much as possible.

We DO have redundant L2 links from our BladeCenter and SANs into the Core. 

Edit: I forgot to add that we run EIGRP so the core is advertising routes to remote offices. I can share a diagram if needed.

Thanks in advance!

[Ganesh Hariharan]

Hi All,


Route/Switch is not my bread and butter so I am looking for ideas and advice on how to proceed with a refresh. 

I am refreshing our core from a stack of 3750-Xs to a pair of Nexus 3ks. L3 is done at the core switch, so I am planning on the switches having mostly the same configuration, with the same IP addressing schemes.

Our servers are directly attached to the Core, so I am expecting some downtime but I'd like to minimize as much as possible.

We DO have redundant L2 links from our BladeCenter and SANs into the Core. 

Edit: I forgot to add that we run EIGRP so the core is advertising routes to remote offices. I can share a diagram if needed.


Thanks in advance!

Hi,

Nexus 3k are good switches, considering your routing table is not that vast and big.

By seeing your post it seems you only need to do this migration in big ban concept by removing 3750 connection and connecting with N3k switches.

I would suggest to cross verify that you have all features which are required in N3k by making it power on so that you have all configuration copied from 3750 switches.

and i believe you would be doing vPC configuration for blade server connectivity with N3k as a new enhanced feature and making this pair in vPC as well.

Hope it Helps..

-GI

Rate if it Helps

[Francisco Granados]

Hi Ganesh,

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I will definitely be taking advantage of vPC.

I'd like to know if there is a way to transition to the new switch without causing a major outage. For example, if I setup the Nexus parallel to the 3750 stack, can I then uplink them, change the stack to route through the Nexus, and then migrate L2 links?

Thanks,

FG

[Ganesh Hariharan]

Hi Ganesh,


Thank you for taking the time to reply. I will definitely be taking advantage of vPC.


I'd like to know if there is a way to transition to the new switch without causing a major outage. For example, if I setup the Nexus parallel to the 3750 stack, can I then uplink them, change the stack to route through the Nexus, and then migrate L2 links?


Thanks,


FG

Hi FG,

You can do that need to understand the uplink connectivity from core to other network.

I would recommend if you get 1-2 hrs downtime window then you just need to swap the cables from old 3750 switch for compute lan and uplink to N3k.

and then you can perform transition testing to confirm the migration is successful.

Hope it Helps..

-GI

rate if it helps