Cat 3750 vs Cat 4500

o.elmohri · ‎02-21-2010

Hi,

I have to choose the 3750 or the 4506 catalysts in the following situation:

I have 12 switchs of access layer with 10/100 Ethernet ports.

6 duplicated fibers arriving to the core layer.

PoE is supported but no IPT for the moment.

About 300 users.

What dou you choose in that case?

Reza Sharifi · ‎02-21-2010

o.elmohri wrote:

Hi,

I have to choose the 3750 or the 4506 catalysts in the following situation:

I have 12 switchs of access layer with 10/100 Ethernet ports.

6 duplicated fibers arriving to the core layer.

PoE is supported but no IPT for the moment.

About 300 users.

What dou you choose in that case?

Hi,

Since this is for your core, I would use Dual 4500 or 6500 and run VRRP or HSRP with layer-2 link in between them. They way you do not have single point of failure in the core. The other reason I like the chassis based switches for the core is that you can and should have redundant power supply, fan tries and Sups.

HTH

Reza

o.elmohri · ‎02-21-2010

That sounds good. But no need for the 6500 as there is no heavy trafic.

And you don't recommende the 3750?

Reza Sharifi · ‎02-21-2010

If you use 3750, you would need to stack them but for 300 users, I would use the 4500 series.

Kevin Dorrell · ‎02-21-2010

If your access switches support EtherChannel, one good architecture is to stack two 3750s in your core/distribution layer, then run the uplinks from your access layer as cross-stack EtherChannels on the 3750s. This has the advantage of instant failover in the case of link failure, and a single SpanningTree bridge in the distribution/core, which is a big advantage if your VLANs span more than one access switch.

If everything is EtherChannels, then you should even be able to lose one of your 3750s without any interruption in network traffic. A sort of "poor-man's VSS".

I have not actually used this architecture yet, but I am planning to do so in the near future.

Kevin Dorrell

Luxembourg

francisco_1 · ‎02-21-2010

In addition to that you could also setup Flex Links on the uplinks instead of STP.

Flex links are easy to configure, highly efficient and more controllable feature . Flex links are more suitable and an opt choice for service provider and core enterprise networks.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst3750/software/release/12.2_25_sec/configuration/guide/swflink.html