4 or 5, 2960 stackable switches instead of one 4500 series?

[germain85]

Hello everyone,

I have a design for my infrastructure and i'm thinking to choose 4 or 5, or more, 2960 series  in a stack mode instead of one 4500 series?

Please can someone tell me what design is better and why?

Thank you for your advise.

[Reza Sharifi]

Hi,

Personally, I like the 4500 with dual sup and dual power supplies. With this, you pay only for one license (even with 2 sups), manage and upgrade one IOS, and one physical device.  With the latest Sups for 4500, you probably get a higher throughput.

HTH

[germain85]

Hi Reza,

What about the non hardware redundancing when using 4500 instead of stack design?

[Reza Sharifi]

Usually the power supply fails or the sup, and if you have redundancy for both then you should be fine.  A better solution would be to have 2 devices, but it all depends on your requirement and how critical your enforcement is.

HTH

[Marvin Rhoads]

Catalyst 4k series switches will generally have more features (both those available in IOS and supported in the hardware) and throughput than 2k series.

That said, if all you are using the switches for is user access layer 2 switches and you don't need those features and throughput, 2k series will be less expensive. Personally, I think the 3k series (e.g. 3750X) is a better choice for access switch stacks, but that's my bias working primarily with enterprise environments.

[germain85]

What's the difference in throughput between 3750 stack and 4500 series?

[Leo Laohoo]

It's actually a "balance".

When dealing with redundancies, if you have a chassis-based switch with dual power supplies and dual supervisor cards, your single-point-of-failure is the chassis or the backplane of the chassis.  ANNNNNND blackplane issues are extremely rare.

If I was given the choice of using a stacked 2960S or a stacked 3750X against 4500R+E with Sup7E or 6500E with Sup2T, I'd choose the chassis-based systems in a blink of an eye.

By the way, you CANNOT stack >4 2960S.  It's hardware-limited so this "market" will not eat into the 3750 market.

Another thing, look at the cost.  We found out that if we have a requirement to stack more than 3 3750X, it's cheaper to get a 4510R+E with Sup7E.

I am sooooo not going to talk about the backplane of the 2960S and 3750X vs 4500R+E and 6500E because it is a moot point nowadays. 

[Joseph W. Doherty]

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The  Author of this posting offers the information contained within this  posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that  there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose.  Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not  be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of this  posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.

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Posting

"Better" depends on what you're trying to accomplish/support.  The 4500 might be more expensive although it can offer performance and features unavailable in a 2960S stack.  (NB: 2960S is limited to 4 stack members [?].)

Price wise, 4500 line cards might cost less than the "equivalent" standalone or stackable switch but the overall price of a 4500 also includes the cost of the chassis and supervisor, etc.  Sometimes a fully populated chassis can be less expensive than an equivalent number of standalone or stackable switches, although chassis redundancy skews the break even point.

The 4500 provides a fabric between its line cards which may be more optimal for distribution and/or core usage.

[germain85]

And 3750 stack compared to 4500 ?

[Reza Sharifi]

here is the data sheet for the 3750.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps5718/ps6406/data_sheet_c78-584733.html

As Leo also noted, if you see yourself start to stack more than 3 3750, it is cheaper to go with the chasses based

HTH

[Reza Sharifi]

Are you using this design for distro layer.  Stack will not do you any good if you deploy it in the access layer and your devices are singly attached.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Disclaimer

The   Author of this posting offers the information contained within this   posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that   there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose.   Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not   be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of  this  posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.

Liability Disclaimer

In   no event shall Author be liable for any damages whatsoever (including,   without limitation, damages for loss of use, data or profit) arising  out  of the use or inability to use the posting's information even if  Author  has been advised of the possibility of such damage.

Posting

germain85 wrote:
 And 3750 stack compared to 4500 ?

Much depends on what series 3750s you're considering, and its feature license, versus what variant of the 4500 and whether you intend to provide supervisor redundancy with the latter.

PS:

re: Reza's comment that break even is on a stack of 3, agreed unless you want 4500 supervisor redundancy, then you need 2nd supervisor and R chassis which moves the break even point to about a stack of 5.

re: Reza's comment about no advantage using as access edge, there are advantages to having an access stack.  Stack can share a MEC uplink, stack is only "one" device to manage, stack ring provides more intrastack bandwidth, stack can also provide MEC to hosts, 3750X stack can share power, etc.

[Robert Rowland III]

Not sure what you are wanting the switches to do but a possible modification to the above would be to use 2 3750/3850s for uplink redundancy and to use stacked 2960Ss portchanneled to the 3750/3850s.  The 3850 is the 3750 replacement/upgrade.

You can add / replace / move a 2960  if needed much easier than you can 1/4 of a 4500 chassis.

[Robert Rowland III]

To follow up on my own post - look at the 2960X which can stack up to 8 devices and also has a 400+ Gb backplane/stack cable.