Network Design (Cat 6000,4500,and 3825)

CHRIS KALETH · ‎08-14-2007

We recently purchased a Cat 6509-E with all GB so we can connect all servers to this. We also have a 4500 that has the majority of our users connected. Our WAN router is a 3825 (all devices in same data center). What is the best design of connecting all three devices together and which device should be handling the routing? Should the 6509 only be a L2 device? Should I setup Etherchannel (if so, any good sites for this?). Also, can the 6509 run either Cat OS or IOS? Which is preferred?

Edison Ortiz · ‎08-14-2007

What kind of Supervisor are the 6509 and 4500 switches running ?

If you have multiple links between these switches, it's recommended to setup etherchannel for bandwidth aggregation.

This link will explain how to configure etherchanneling:

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/cat6000/122sx/swcg/channel.htm

I recommend running the 6509 in IOS since Cisco is moving away support from CatOS.

CHRIS KALETH · ‎08-14-2007

We have a Cat6500 (V-10GE) and 4510R (V)

Jon Marshall · ‎08-14-2007

Hi

Could you just confirm what supervisor you have in your 6500 ie.

Sup1A

Sup2

Sup32

Sup720

Jon

CHRIS KALETH · ‎08-14-2007

Sup720

Jon Marshall · ‎08-14-2007

Then you should do all the LAN inter-vlan routing on the 6500 and the WAN routing on the 3825.

You can connect the 4500 to the 6500 either with layer 2 links or with layer 3 links.

Jon

Edison Ortiz · ‎08-14-2007

I agree with Jon.

One thing I want to mention, the Sup720 only runs Native IOS so your initial query regarding running CatOS vs IOS is now limited by the Supervisor. You only have one option which isn't a bad one :)

Jon Marshall · ‎08-14-2007

Hi

As Edison has said a lot depends on your supervisor. However if you are connecting your servers to the 6500 and the users to the 4500 it would make sense to have the 6500 do the inter-vlan routing for the server and client vlans.

Use a P2P link from the 6500 to the 3825 router for Wan connectivity. The 3825 should do the Wan routing.

HTH

Jon