Looking for switch recommendation

[poulid]

Hi folks. We've currently got a pair of Catalyst 3850's stacked that we plug our internet facing ports into (provider routers, firewall interfaces, etc). I've always hated this platform for anything requiring high availability, since you can't upgrade them without causing an outage. We've setup our DMZ infrastructure the same way.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a platform that is highly redundant (more than one physical switch), but would also allow non service affecting upgrades? Maybe the Nexus 9K in a VPC pair?

Thx in advance.

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

the Catalyst 9K is the latest generation of switches, e.g. the 9300 supports stacking redundancy.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-9300-series-switches/data_sheet-c78-738977.html

[poulid]

Are they similar to the 3850 though, where when I upgrade the IOS, the entire stack needs to reboot?

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

a major IOS upgrade still requires a reboot of all stack members (I wouldn't know how to load the new IOS without that), minor SMUs are non-disruptive...

[Mark Malone]

The 9400s can do ISSU but 93 and 92 are same as 3850s

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-9000/nb-09-cat-9k-faq-cte-en.pdf

[Mark Malone]

Does anyone have any recommendations for a platform that is highly redundant (more than one physical switch), but would also allow non service affecting upgrades? Maybe the Nexus 9K in a VPC pair

These are good switches , line rate 10GB, stable NX-OS and work in VPC , we have quite a few of them , there cheap too compared to 5ks as another option but the 9ks catalyst would be the next step in terms of release from the 3k series as the posts from George

N9K-C93180YC-EX

[Sergey Lisitsin]

Mark, new Catalyst 9500 series switches support VSS, so should be a good choice. 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-9500-series-switches/data_sheet-c78-738978.html

[poulid]

I've got a pair of 5548UP's in the lab that were recently decommissioned. Wonder if these would suffice. Running them in a VPC pair should give me the upgradeability/redundancy I'm looking for?

[Mark Malone]

They should work fine for you in VPC mode , dual link to each 5k by portchannels

[Leo Laohoo]

@poulid wrote:

non service affecting upgrades?

---

I don't believe there is such as thing as "non-service impacting upgrades". 

Chassis-based is worst because each line card has it's own IOS in it.  Supervisor card pushes the firmware to each line cards and each line card need to reboot in order to upgrade. 

I have to wait for others to comment about how ISSU/FSU/eFSU will work (or not) in the 9400 chassis.  Not a lot of people have good experience using ISSU/FSU/eFSU upgrading Catalyst 4K/6K chassis.