Nexus 5548 and Routing

[plingg]

Hello

I plan to implement a Nexus 5548UP with routing option as backbone/datacenter switch in small 10 Giga network. For any time I heard there are some problems with the Routing of clients segments. Some features are not supported like on the catalyst products. I check the features on the Nexus and I don't believe there is now a problem for client segments.

Does anyone have experience with the nexus 5548 as backbone router?

regards

Pascal

[Reza Sharifi]

Pascal,

In order to do layer-3 on the Nexus 5K, you need to buy a layer-3 doughtier card.  As for layer-3 features, here are all the ones that are supported:

•  Layer 3 interfaces: Routed ports on Cisco Nexus 5500 platform  interfaces, switch virtual interface (SVI), PortChannels, subinterfaces,  and PortChannel subinterfaces for a total of 4096 entries

• Support for up to 8000 prefixes and up to 8000 host entries

• Support for up to 2000 multicast routes

• Support for 1000 VRF entries

• Support for up to 4096 VLANs

• 16-way equal-cost multipathing (ECMP)

• 2000 ingress and 1000 egress access control list (ACL) entries

•  Routing protocols: Static, Routing Information Protocol Version2  (RIPv2), Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), Open  Shortest Path First Version 2 (OSPFv2), and Border Gateway Protocol  (BGP)

• Hot-Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) and Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP)

• ACL: Routed ACL with Layer 3 and 4 options to match ingress and egress ACL

•  Multicast: Protocol Independent Multicast Version 2 (PIMv2) sparse  mode, Source Specific Multicast (SSM), Multicast Source Discovery  Protocol (MSDP), and Internet Group Management Protocol Versions 2, and 3  (IGMP v2, and v3)

• Virtual Route Forwarding (VRF): VRF-lite (IP VPN); VRF-aware unicast; and BGP-, OSPF-, RIP-, and VRF-aware multicast

• Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding (uRFP) with ACL; strict and loose modes

• Jumbo frame support (up to 9216 bytes)

for more info have a look at the data sheet

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps9670/data_sheet_c78-618603.html

HTH

[Jerry Ye]

If you can live with 160G routing, you should be fine.

The only thing is N5K is not possition as a core router because is cannot expand.

Regards,

jerry

[plingg]

Hi Jerry

Do you have experience with Nexus 5548 as core-switch?

Regards

Pascal

[Jerry Ye]

I personally don't. My customers are pretty big and they all use N7Ks.

If N5K fits your need, it should be okay.

Regards,

jerry

[mterbish]

Can any one tell me if above mentioned 5548UP or P does support IPv6 ?

[Reza Sharifi]

Yes, have a look (5548P)

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps9670/ps11215/white_paper_c11-622479.html

[BrinksArgentina]

Hi friends,

I'm planning a network for a new building and have to take de decision for the core. I will be very happy if I can unify LAN and SAN. But can I do that with a reasonable cost?

I'm ok with 160G routing speed.

should I buy two 4506 (plus 5548 for servers) instead of two 5548 (plus some 2200 maybe) for the core of mi network?

I miss something using 5548?

300 PC

200 PoIP phones

250 IP cameras at 1Mbps

6 racks for access switches

3 all new racks will be stacks of 2960S

3 racks filled with 2960TT. Maybe routed using existent 3650/3750

Q: Can I connect the 37502960S stacks to both nexus using an etherchannel (vPC)?

Thanks!

[Amit Singh]

Hi,

Yes, you can do that. You can have any switch connected to Nexus in a VPC mode.

As your setup is a small one, you can use 2x 5548 with L3 daughter cards on them. With L3 daugther card, Nexus 5500 supports upto 8 FEX's in cross-connect mode or 16 FEX's in straight through mode. For your set up it should be OK.

I would not use a stack of 3750 or 2960S's a TOR of the switch as the Nexus architecture gives me more flexibility with N2K. The Nexus 2K's with N5K give me a single point of config, management, code upgrade, troubleshooting and investement protecttion.

I would suggest to use Cat4500 for the Campus/User access deployment for POE requirement. Neuxs 2K's do not support POE as they are being primarily targetted only for TOR  switch.

Let us know if you have any doubts.

Cheers,

-amit singh