Catalyst 4507 or a 6500 series switch

vanguard1 · ‎05-02-2007

I have a network I do not expect to exceed 750 devices. Would the 4507 be appropriate for that number of devices. 10 closets will feed back via fiber, all in differnet vlans, to access email/file servers/proprietary programs on a separate vlan. Collapsed core design would be in use. Just wondering if anyone else has used the 4500 series switch at the distribution/core layer with that number of devices connected.

mohammedmahmoud · ‎05-02-2007

Hi,

The 4507 can serve Up to 384 FastEthernet or Gigabit Ethernet ports, i don't think that a single one would provide you with the port density required, while the 6500 can have up to 1,152 10/100 ports, 577 10/100/1000 ports.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns340/ns394/ns147/netbr0900aecd80357ff4.html

HTH, please rate if it does help,

Mohammed Mahmoud.

vanguard1 · ‎05-02-2007

Port Density would not be an issue for me. Just concerned about the inter-vlan routing speed, and then the switching of traffic to other locations. All closets would feed this switch via fiber uplink, 12 at the moment. Each one in it's own vlan. I would then use static routes on the switch to send any traffic not going to another internal vlan, to point to the firewall, remote sites, etc..

eofelt · ‎05-02-2007

So, you have 750 total for now but consider 20% for growth.

If I understand your question, you would use the 4507 has a distro/core.

For the end devices you listed, it should be no issue.

vanguard1 · ‎05-02-2007

Thanks for the advice. Yes, this switch would be at the distro/core. I will use static routes on the switch for internet access/out to remote sites via MPLS, etc...

eofelt · ‎05-02-2007

YVW, the 4500 sits nicely at access/distro/ or small business core. We have quite a few 4's and 4500's.

Here's some of the IP Routing Protocol info that might help you later.

The following routing protocols are supported on the Catalyst 4500 series switch:

BGP

OSPF

IGRP

IS-IS

OSPF

RIP

VRRP

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps4324/products_configuration_guide_chapter09186a0080731433.html#wp1031485

With the base IP image, it will only run Eigrp

as a stub. I didn't see anything about MPLS aside from VPN support.

A SupII will support current images and features.

hth

jasonrandolph · ‎05-03-2007

FYI: Per Cisco, the Sup 5 10GE does not support full OSPF routing at this time...

vanguard1 · ‎05-04-2007

Thanks. Just wondering if you can explain this to me. Optimally, all 15 closets would feed this one switch and I would like gig uplink speeds for each individual uplink.

? 2 ports of wire-speed 1000BASE-X Gigabit Ethernet uplinks

? 16 ports: 4:1 oversubscribed

This sounds like I would have a total of 6 gig uplinks, if I wanted dedicated gigabit speeds for each.