Cisco VN-Link or VMFEX

[rhap4boyz]

Hi,

We currently have

2 - Catalyst 4507

2 - Catalyst 3750X

2 - UCS 6248

1 - UCS 5108

1 - EMC VNX5300

B200M3 Blade servers

Cisco UCS VIC 1240 modular LOM

What is the best practice for setting this up for a VMware 5.X environment?

Can Cisco VN-Link or VM-FEX be set up without the Cisco UCS M81KR Virtual Interface Card nor Cisco Nexus 1000V?

What is the best way to connect these for redundancy and load balancing?

Can the routing happen at the Catalyst 3750X level instead at the core Catalyst 4507?

What does the connection look like between 3750X and 6248? Does it need spanning tree protocol?  Will it be active / passive?

Thank you!

Rhap4boy

[Robert Burns]

There a few too many quesitons here to address.  You should start with doing some background reading on DC switching and routing design, then move into UCS and N1K.  

There are tonnes of deployment and best practice guides on CCO if you look.

Here's one to get you started.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps9902/white_paper_c11-558242.html

Regards,

Robert