UCS connectivity options

[cowetacoit]

We are close to implementing UCS into our existing data center. We have a pair of 4506-Es and were planning to run VSS. Well, i found out today that several of our line cards are unsupported and VSS will not work. The two 4500s are running HSRP. I'm wondering what my options are for connecting the two Cisco 6248 FIs to my two 4500s. I'm really dissapointed to find out VSS won't work. We have two 12 port SFP+s line cards in the 4500s. I was hoping to have 4 10G uplinks from each FI to each Core. Now it looks like i might have to settle for a STP design with active/standby? Do i have any other options?

[Marvin Rhoads]

I almost always see UCS FI matched up with a Nexus 5k and/or 7k core (e.g. in a validated Flexpod design).

A non-VSS Catalyst 4k core will pretty much force you to a STP design which wastes half the uplinks in blocking. You can get fancy with setting different roots for different VLANs but that's pretty labor-intensive and doesn't always match your server and application needs.

[cowetacoit]

If i was building from ground up Nexus would be the way to go.

I got final clarification from an SE that there are unsupported line cards as far as VSLgoes.....and not overall VSS function. The way it sounded is if i had these "unsupported" line cards in the chassis they would no longer function. After clarification....they are not compatible with VSL links. I just need to use the supervisor uplinks.