03-26-2010 12:01 PM - edited 03-06-2019 10:20 AM
Hi,
We are trying to decide if we should use Catalyst 3750 or 4948 to do switching and routing in a data centre.
Previously some reasons for buying 4948 have been redundant power supplies and non-blocking switches.
Now with the new Catalyst 3750-X coming out that has both those features, which advantages do you see for buying 4948?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Best regards,
Harry
03-26-2010 02:25 PM
Trying to find a reason why one prefers a 4948 against the 3750X ... Nope, can't think of one.
04-30-2015 12:37 PM
Stumbled late into this discussion, but it is still valid as the 4948 series still whips the pants off much of the "currently new" product line. One thing I have noticed is an extremely high rate of failure in 3750X switches when it deals with stacking failures. There are some extreme design issues there, especially with the power staking. This is purely from a personal experience, 3750Xs tend to fail every 1 to 3 years or exhibit some oddity often leading to an RMA. 4900s on the other have seem to be rock solid, more of a data center grade build than wiring closet grade. Have never seem one fail that I have deployed. I tried to research the numbers, and see conflicting or incomplete values on the 3750x series from data sheets and such, but an sure someone from the Cisco side can chime in with hard numbers. So here is what my personal experience boils down to, if the number one priorities are reliability and consistent performance go for the 4900 series - if it is that single CLI management interface then go with the 3750X. Again, this is a personal experience, but it seems that the 4900 team was much more stability and ruggedness focused.
4948 back plane, buffers, queues....
4948 = 96Gbps switching fabric, 16MB shared buffer, 72Mpps forwarding in layer 2 and 3 mode, 512 ingress and egress policers, 6 microsecond port-to-port latency, 2000 packet max input queue, up to 8 queues per port
3750X = 160Gbps switching fabric (only 64Gbps through the stack plane), 16MB shared buffer, 101Mpps (layer 2, 3 not advertised), 64 ingress and egress policers, 200 packet max input queue, 6 to 19 microsecond forward latency port-to-port (independent test show 3750X exhibits much more variance on port-to-port latency than 4948s, especially when stacking is involved).
04-30-2015 12:37 PM
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Well, the difference is, the 4900 series are basically non-chassis 4500s. I agree they tend to be more "industrial" strength or carrier grade.
04-30-2015 04:35 PM
Geez. This is an old thread. :)
Over the years, there's only one reason why I want to stick to 3750X: Stable IOS code.
Another reason is redundancy: If a switch member of the stack fails, then you can just replace this and have little impact.
There are, however, extreme cases why I'd choose 4900 over 3750X.
04-30-2015 05:55 PM
@Leo, I have actually found the code to be the same on both. 4500s tend to be deployed in many more large campus environments that actual push the code on the load and configuration variation much further. Because of that, I would tend to think that since both follow the same 15.0 and 12.2 OS paths, the stability of the hardware and more heavily scrutinized, tried and true, OS would be the 4900 (based on 4500 Sup V that has been out for years).
I think the best use have to do more with what they were really made for. The 4948 was intended to be a top-of-rack server switch or small campus core. The 3750X is really a user access switch, wiring closet switch. Both are great switches, other than hardware stability and durability form my personal experience. So, if I was building a core that I needed to be rock solid or top of rack where huge amount of concurrent frames will be passed across many ports, really push the store and forward limits of the buffers, 4900 series would always be my choice. If I need a user switch, PoE, and have to worry about limited CLIs to administer, 3750 stacks are great.
03-27-2010 08:03 AM
One thing to remember about Cisco is that they 'pit' their development teams against one and other, so to speak. The 2960SX, 2975, and 3750 are another set of examples. The 2975 is the layout of the 3750, while only layer 2. POE2 and stackability is cheaper than the 3750, while the 2975SX came out with many of the same features and sharable power. This comes from the switchlines being sustained by the success of the line they produce, and each in its own business 'silo.'
Therefore, two switch sets can have nearly identical feature sets, but be two different lines. What we did was look at the features we use, then looked if Cisco was committed to the line, and finally whether there was feature we may use in the future.
03-29-2010 01:25 AM
Thanks for the replies!
One thing that I have noticed is that the 3750 (at least the older versions) only support 26 VRFs, whereas the 4948 supports 64.
Are you aware of any other major differences?
Best regards,
Harry
03-29-2010 01:38 AM
net-harry wrote:
Thanks for the replies!
One thing that I have noticed is that the 3750 (at least the older versions) only support 26 VRFs, whereas the 4948 supports 64.
Are you aware of any other major differences?
Best regards,
Harry
Harry
There are quite a few differences but whether or not they are important only you can say really. Have you done a side by side comparison of the data sheets -
Jon
03-29-2010 02:19 AM
Hi Jon,
Yes, I have compared the data sheets, but I find it difficult to find less obvious feature differences.
I have used the Cisco Software Advisor Tool to check the software differences, but some of the features that are listed as present in only seems to be available also in the other.
The software that I used were the latest available (Cisco Catalyst 3750E running 12.2(53)SE1 and Cisco Catalyst 4948 Running 12.2(53)SG1). Features that were present on both are not listed.
Software features that 3750E has but not 4948
Access Switch Device Manager (SDM) Template
ANSI TIA-1057 LLDP - MED Location Extension
Auto Smart Ports
Cisco IOS Software Activation
Cisco IP Phone Support
Cisco StackWise Technology
CISCO-PORT-QOS-MIB Enhancement
Client Information Signalling Protocol (CISP)
Common Session-ID logging enhancement
Configurable IGMP Leave Timer
Cos/DSCP exchange using LLDP
Critical VLAN with multi-auth
DHCP - Server Port Based Address Allocation
DHCP - Configurable DHCP Client
DHCP - DHCPv6 Relay Agent notification for Prefix Delegation
DHCP - DHCPv6 Individual Address Assignment
DHCP - DHCPv6 Server SNTP, NIS, NIS+, Refresh Timer options
DHCP - DHCPv6 Server Stateless Auto Configuration
DHCP Client Option 12
DHCP Snooping Option 82 enhancement for circuit-id string
DHCPv6 - Relay - Reload persistent Interface ID option
DHCPv6 Client Information Refresh Option
DHCPv6 Ethernet Remote ID option
DHCPv6 Repackaging
Embedded Event Manager (EEM) 2.4
Enhanced Tracking Support
Fallback Bridging
Fast Stack Image Upgrade
GOLD - Generic Online Diagnostics
HSRP for IPv6
IEEE 802.1x - Auth Fail Open
IEEE 802.1X - Flexible Authentication
IEEE 802.1x Fallback support
IEEE 802.1X Multi-Domain Authentication
IEEE 802.1x Supplicant Support for EAP-FAST
IEEE 802.1x Supplicant Support for MD5
IEEE 802.1X Voice Aware Security Violations
IEEE 802.1x with User Distribution
IGMP Proxy
IGMP Querier
IGMP Snooping
IP Admission Policy MIB
IP over IPv6 Tunnels
IP Phone Enhancement - PHY Loop Detection
IP SLAs Additional Threshold Traps
IPv4/IPv6 Dual Stack
IPv6 Access Services: DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation
IPv6 Access Services: DHCPv6 Relay Agent
IPv6 Default Router Preference
IPv6 QoS: (Quality of Service)
ISL VLAN
LLDP Power Assignment
MAC Authentication Bypass
MAC Move
MLD Snooping
Multi-host Mode with EPM
Multicast Etherchannel Load Balancing
NAC - L2 IP with Auth Fail Open
NSF - EIGRP
NSF - OSPF
NSF Awareness - BGP
NSF Awareness - OSPF
RADIUS Change of Authorization (CoA)
RADIUS Server Load Balancing
Smart Install
SRR (Shaped Round Robin)
Standalone MAB support
Support for 4096 VLAN IDs
Transparent Bridging
Trunk Failover
Trusted boundary (extended trust for CDP devices)
Unicast Mac Filtering
VLAN-ID Based MAC Authentication
VTP version 3
Webauth Enhancements
Weighted Tail Drop (WTD)
Software features that 4948 has but not 3750
8-Way CEF Load Balancing
802.3ah and CFM Interworking
AAA Broadcast Accounting
AAA DNIS Map for Authorization
AAA Resource Accounting
AAA Server Group Deadtimer
AAA Server Group Enhancements
AAA Server Groups Based on DNIS
ACL - Named ACL Support for Noncontiguous Ports on an Access Control Entry
ACL - Reflexive Access Lists
Additional Vendor-Proprietary RADIUS Attributes
AppleTalk 1 and 2
AppleTalk Access List Enhancements
AppleTalk Load Balancing
AppleTalk SMRP
Authentication Proxy Accounting for HTTP
AutoRP Enhancement
BGP Conditional Route Injection
BGP Configuration Using Peer Templates
BGP Cost Community
BGP Cost Community Support for EIGRP MPLS VPN PE-CE
BGP Dynamic Update Peer-Groups
BGP Hybrid CLI Support
BGP Increased Support of Numbered as-path Access Lists to 500
BGP Link Bandwidth
BGP Multipath Load Sharing for Both eBGP and iBGP in an MPLS-VPN
BGP Next Hop Propagation
BGP Policy Accounting
BGP Reduction in Transient Memory Usage
BGP Route-Map Continue Support for Outbound Policy
BGP Route-Map Policy List Support
BGP Support for Dual AS Configuration for Network AS Migrations
BGP Support for IP Prefix Import from Global Table into a VRF Table
BGP Support for Named Extended Community Lists
BGP Support for Sequenced Entries in Extended Community Lists
BGP Support for TTL Security Check
Bidirectional PIM
Boot Config
Call Home
Certification Authority Interoperability (CA)
CFM Outward Facing MEP on Switchports
CFM-2
Cisco Express Forwarding - SNMP CEF-MIB Support
Cisco IOS Scripting w/ Tcl
CiscoView Autonomous Device Manager (ADP)
Class Based Weighted Fair Queuing (CBWFQ)
Class-Based Policing
Class-Based Shaping
CNS
CNS - Configuration Agent
CNS - Event Agent
CNS - Image Agent
CNS - Interactive CLI
CNS Config Retrieve Enhancement with Retry and Interval
Command Scheduler (Kron)
Command Scheduler (Kron) Policy for System Startup
Committed Access Rate (CAR)
Community Private VLAN
Config Change Tracking Identifier
Configuration Rollback Confirmed Change
Control Plane Policing (CoPP)
CoS Mutation
Debounce Timer per Port
Default Passive Interface
DHCP Client
DHCP Option 82 Pass Through
DHCP Proxy Client
DHCP Relay Agent Support for Unnumbered Interfaces
Display SAP by Name
DLR Enhancements: PGM RFC-3208 Compliance
DRP Server Agent
Easy IP (Phase 1)
EGP
Embedded Event Manager (EEM) 2.0
Enhanced High System Availability
EtherChannel Enhancement - Single Port Channel
EtherChannel Layer 4 Distribution
Ethernet Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM)
Extended ACL support for IGMP to support SSM in IPv4
FHRP - VRF Aware VRRP
FHRP - Enhanced Object Tracking of IP SLAs
FHRP - EOT integration with EEM
Firewall Authentication Proxy
Flex Link VLAN Load-Balancing
Flex Links
Flow-Based WRED
Forced 10/100 Autonegotiation
Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP)
Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)
Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) Tunnel Keepalive
Generic Routing Encapsulation Tunnel IP Source and Destination VRF Membership (PXF Based)
Generic Traffic Shaping (GTS)
HSRP - Hot Standby Router Protocol and IPSec
HSRP support for ICMP Redirects
HSRP support for MPLS VPNs
HTTP TACAC+ Accounting support
HTTP(S) USB Flash
IEEE 802.1x - Wake on LAN Support
IEEE 802.1x Guest VLAN
IEEE 802.1x Private Guest VLAN
IEEE 802.1x Private VLAN Assignment
IEEE 802.1x Radius-Supplied Session Timeout
IGMP Version 3 - Explicit Tracking of Hosts, Groups, and Channels
Inline Power Auto Negotiation
Inline Power Management
Interface Index Persistence
Interfaces MIB: SNMP context based access
IP Event Dampening
IP Multicast over 1483 VC Mux Encapsulation on ARMII
IP Precedence Accounting
IP Precedence for GRE Tunnels
IP SLAs - DLSW+ Operation
IP SLAs - History Statistics
IP SLAs - LSP Health Monitor with LSP Discovery
IP SLAs - SNA LU2 Echo
IP SLAs - SNMP Support
IP SLAs - VoIP Threshold Traps
IP SLAs for MPLS Pseudo Wire (PWE3) via VCCV
IP SLAs Sub-millisecond Accuracy Improvements
IP Unnumbered for VLAN-SVI interfaces
IPv6 Bidirectional PIM
IPv6 Multicast
IPv6 Multicast: Address Family Support for Multiprotocol BGP
IPv6 Multicast: Bootstrap Router (BSR)
IPv6 Multicast: Explicit Tracking of Receivers
IPv6 Multicast: MLD Access Group
IPv6 Multicast: Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) Protocol, Versions 1 and 2
IPv6 Multicast: PIM Accept Register
IPv6 Multicast: PIM Embedded RP Support
IPv6 Multicast: PIM Source-Specific Multicast (PIM-SSM)
IPv6 Multicast: PIM Sparse Mode (PIM-SM)
IPv6 Multicast: Routable Address Hello Option
IPv6 Multicast: RPF Flooding of Bootstrap Router (BSR) Packets
IPv6 Multicast: Scope Boundaries
IPv6 Routing: IS-IS Multitopology Support for IPv6
IPv6 Routing: IS-IS Support for IPv6
IPv6 Services: Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) - IPv6 Address Family Support for Neighbor Information
IPv6 Stateless Auto-configuration
IPv6 Switching: CEFv6 Switched Automatic IPv4-compatible Tunnels
IPv6 Switching: CEFv6 Switched Configured IPv6 over IPv4 Tunnels
IPv6 Switching: CEFv6 Switched ISATAP Tunnels
IPv6 Tunneling: Automatic 6to4 Tunnels
IPv6 Tunneling: Automatic IPv4-compatible Tunnels
IPv6 Tunneling: IPv6 over IPv4 GRE Tunnels
IPv6 Tunneling: ISATAP Tunnel Support
IPv6 Tunneling: Manually Configured IPv6 over IPv4 Tunnels
IPv6: Anycast Address
IPX Access Control List Violation Logging
IPX Access List Plain English Filters
IPX Named Access Lists
IPX SAP-after-RIP
IS-IS MIB
ISSU (IOS In-Service Software Upgrade)
ISSU - 802.3ah OAM Support
L2PT - Layer 2 Protocol Tunneling on Trunk Ports
Loadsharing IP packets over more than six parallel paths
Lock and Key
Logging to Local Nonvolatile Storage (ATA Disk)
Low Latency Queueing (LLQ)
MAC Address Notification
Manual Certificate Enrollment via TFTP
Memory Threshold Notifications
Modular QoS CLI (MQC)
MPLS VPN - Inter-Autonomous System Support
MPLS VPN - OSPF PE-CE Support
MPLS VPN - Route Target Rewrite
MSDP compliance with IETF RFC 3618
Multi-protocol BGP (MP-BGP) - MPLS VPN
Multicast Fast Switching Performance Improvement
Multicast Routing Monitor (MRM)
Multicast-VPN: Multicast Support for MPLS VPN
Netconf access for Configuration over BEEP
NETCONF over SSHv2
Next Hop Resolution Protocol (NHRP)
Novell IPX
NSF - BGP
NSF - Graceful Restart (GR) and Non Stop Routing (NSR) for IS-IS
NSF/SSO (Nonstop Forwarding with Stateful Switchover)
NSF/SSO - 802.3ah OAM Support
NSF/SSO Support in CFM 802.1ag/1.0d
On Demand Routing (ODR)
OSPF Area Transit Capability
OSPF Flooding Reduction
OSPF Incremental Shortest Path First (i-SPF) Support
OSPF Limit on Number of Redistributed Routes
OSPF Link State Database Overload Protection
OSPF Link-local Signaling (LLS) Per Interface Basis
OSPF MIB Support of RFC 1850 and Latest Extensions
OSPF On Demand Circuit (RFC 1793)
OSPF Packet Pacing
OSPF Sham-Link Support for MPLS VPN
OSPF Shortest Paths First Throttling
OSPF Stub Router Advertisement
OSPF Support for Fast Hellos
OSPF Support for Forwarding Adjacencies over MPLS Traffic Engineered Tunnels
OSPF Support for Link State Advertisement (LSA) Throttling
OSPF Support for Multi-VRF on CE Routers
OSPF Support for Unlimited Software VRFs per Provider Edge (PE) Router
OSPF Update Packet-Pacing Configurable Timers
Out-of-band Management Port
Pagp/UDLD/LACP L2 tunneling
PBACL (Policy Based Access Control Lists)
Performance Enhancements for IOS ACL
Periodic MIB Data Collection and Transfer Mechanism
PGM Host
Port Security on Etherchannel Trunk Port
Pragmatic General Multicast (PGM)
Pre-fragmentation For Ipsec VPNs
Private VLAN Promiscuous Trunk Port
Private VLAN Trunk Ports
QoS Policy Propagation via Border Gateway Protocol (QPPB)
QoS Priority Percentage CLI Support
RADIUS Attribute 44 (Accounting Session ID) in Access Requests
RADIUS for Multiple User Datagram Protocol Ports
RADIUS Tunnel Attribute Extensions
Redundancy Facility Protocol
Reliable Delivery and Filtering for Syslog
REP - (Resilient Ethernet Protocol)
Response Time Reporter (RTR)
Response Time Reporter (RTR) enhancements
Reverse Route Injection (RRI)
RGMP - Router-Port Group Management Protocol
Role-Based Access Control CLI commands
Router Security Audit Logs
Router Security Audit Manageability
RTP Header Compression
Selective Packet Discard (SPD)
Selective Virtual-Access Interface Creation
Silent Operation Mode
SNMP Support for BGP Policy Accounting
SNMP Support over VPNs - Context Based Access Control
Source Specific Multicast (SSM) - IGMPv3,IGMP v3lite, and URD
Source Specific Multicast (SSM) Mapping
Span Enhancement: Packet Type and Address Type Filtering
SSO - HDLC
SSO - IGMP Snooping
SSO - Multilink PPP (MLP)
SSO - PPP
Standby Supervisor Port Usage
Sticky Port Security
Sticky Port Security on Voice VLAN
Suppress BGP Advertisement for Inactive Routes
SVI (Switch Virtual Interface) Autostate Exclude
Switch Port Analyzer (SPAN) - CPU Source
System Logging - EAL4 Certification Enhancements
Tacacs SENDAUTH function
Triggered RIP
Trusted Root Certification Authority
Tunnel Type of Service (TOS)
UDLR Tunnel ARP and IGMP Proxy
Uni-Directional Link Routing (UDLR)
Unidirectional Ethernet
User Maximum Links
Vendor-Specific RADIUS Attributes
Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP)
Virtual Trunking Protocol (VTP) - Pruning
VLAN MAC Address Filtering
Warm Reload
WCCP Version 2
Weighted Fair Queueing (WFQ)
Weighted RED (WRED)
Best regards,
Harry
03-29-2010 05:08 AM
Hello Harry,
as Jon has noted all depends from what is the use of devices:
if they are going to be used in a datacenter as L2 only switches and in an IPv4 only environment (just to make an example), a lot of the listed items are not of interest.
If you are going to use them for access layer and for the security policy of your company you would like to implement 802.1X authentication with some of the listed features that are missing on 4948 your choice can be done.
also the fact that C3750 are stackable and C49848 are not can be of value or not depending on the use
to be noted declared performances are close.
Hope to help
Giuseppe
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