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5707
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3750 as MPLS PE !!!

sultan-shaikh
Level 3
Level 3

Hi,

I came across this link "http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps5718/ps5532/product_data_sheet0900aecd806e27b9.html"

It says that 3750 can be used as an L2/L3 PE... for me it sounds too good to be true.

Am I missing something... is anyone here using these to provide MPLS based L2/L3 services.

Please suggest.

Thanks

Cheers

~sultan

22 Replies 22

mlund
Level 7
Level 7

Hi

I thought the same thing first time I saw it. There is a hatsh, It's 3750M, M for Metro, it's not regular 3750, and regular 3750 can't be upgraded, it differs in hardware. You can't even stack 3750M together with 3750. At least it was like that when I looked at it 1 year ago.

/Mikael

That stupid Metro thing has gotten me in the past too! Think it had something to do with BFD support and I got all excited, only later to learn it was on the roadmap for the Metro but not the non-metro 3700 series. DOH!

saxon.jones
Level 1
Level 1

Note that this is a 3750 Metro, not a 3750 or 3750-E.

-saxon

Thanks to Mikael, Scott and Saxon,

So I understand that I can use 3750 Metro as a L2/L3 PE.

My query is has anyone deployed them in their Production network?

I don't want to please my Finance guys by deploying a low cost box and in turn mess the network efficiency.

Please suggest.

Thanks

Cheers

~sultan

no dear you cannot deploy 3750 as LSR/LER. ONly you can use it for the multi vrf.

regards

shivlu

Hi Shivlu,

Thanks for your response.

Actually I had missed the "M" in 3750 and I had meant 3750M, which does support these functionalities, hence my query.

Thanks

Cheers

~sultan

We were looking at purchasing about 50 of these but after spending a lot of time looking into them and talking to our Cisco SE they hinted (steered us away) to hold of on them. They wouldn't say why but my guess is there are still some undocumented problems that aren't for plubic consumption yet.

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for your response, I also went through the details a bit more and found out that it does have some limitations, major one for me being that it cannot support FRR and MPLS-TE hence I had to stop considering this for my network. [My Cisco guys were not kind enough to steer me away from this :)].

Now I am vetting [on paper] another alternative to this, ME 6524, this one is a bit more expensive than 3750M, but supports a whole lot of functionalities including FRR and TE.

Thanks

Regards

~sultan

One of my customers deployed about 25 of the 3750 Metro series using them as both P, and PE switches. They used them to do layer 3 VPN and Atom. The switches will certanly work in this manner but only in very limited functionalty. There is a limited number of VRF's supported, and the number of routes that can be contained within hardware is limited as well. In most cases the 6500 metro series is a better fit.

I was wondering if it's possible to design a MPLS core based entirely on 3750M switches. Forgetting best-practices, is it possible to deploy a small MPLS network using 3750M switches as Provider routers?

ksolie
Level 1
Level 1

Sultan,

We are deploying them in our MPLS network, but we are using them as Multi-VRF CEs. I don't think you can MP-BGP on it, so it's role is pretty much a mvrf-CE only, but the Multi-VRF capability when attached to a PE router is pretty powerful. For instance we route multiple VRF's in OSPF on the 3750s and then run them into multiple VRFs on the PE routers, and it works great so far.

Keep in mind that it is a Metro E 3750 and 'normal' 3750.

As mentioned we use these as Multi-VRF CE, and now this capability is being supported on non-metro E switches, so in some cases they may not be the ideal switch for you if you just need m-VRF capability.

Hope that helps..

Karl Solie

Hi Karl,

Thanks for your reply, so it seems that I can safely conclude that 3750 Metro is not and should not be used as a L3 PE.

I would again thank everyone who replied to this query.

Thanks

Cheers

~sultan

It's weird because I browse the 3750 Metro configuration guide and it seems that you can run bgp process on it (with vpnv4 address so MP-BGP)

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/metro/catalyst3750m/software/release/12.2_44_se/configuration/guide/swmpls.html#wp1021082

It's confirmed in this picture too : http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps5718/ps5532/images/product_data_sheet0900aecd806e27b9-3.jpg

So it should be possible to use 3750M as a PE, i'm very interested by this solution for our metropolitan network !

Ya know it sure looks like it.

I'm actually teaching the MPLS class this week. From what I see in the document, it sure looks like it would support everything you need for MPLS L3 VPNS. The ME3400 is really a different animal. You have to use some extra commands in routing context and even on the interfaces(they are all UNI/NNI types) to really get it all to work the way you would think.

So I would say yes it can do MPLS L3 VPNs. I'm curious about this as well, as we are deploying them.

If you would like to discuss I'd be happy to talk with you..

solieresearch@sbcglobal.net

-Karl Solie

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