LAN network design - Core/access with Cisco 6513

[John Kim]

Hi,

I have been tasked with setting up a new branch office, with 100+ users, a stack of servers (1Gb-based) and some wireless access points, WAN block (ASA 5520 and a couple of routers.)

At the moment, port requirement is around 400. 

As there's not enough space and it's only a single floor office, I'm thinking to go ahead with one of Cisco 6500 models, specifically Catalyst 6513-E, as a core and access switch. This way, there won't be any need to try to install 48-port switches around the small office area.

I'm not too sure about the pricing at the moment. It may be a better/cheaper option to go with a couple of 3750s as core/aggregation and 2960s for access switch installed all in the same rack. If I go with small switches, it would be roughly x7 48-port access switches and one stack of two 3750s, which gives about 450-60. 

I believe I won't utilise half of the capacity if I go ahead with 6513, however my manager wants to minimise the overhead managing this branch office hence this all-in-all one switch option has resurfaced.

Is there anyone using this kind of similar setup in the environment? If so, can you please share your opinions?

Also, would there be a huge difference in terms of pricing?

Catalyst 6503-E	Catalyst 6504-E	Catalyst 6506-E	Catalyst 6509-E	Catalyst 6513-E	Catalyst 6509-V-E
Slots	3	4	6	9	13	9 vertical
Max 10/100/1000 ports	97	145	241	385	529	385
Max 1 GE ports1	99	147	243	387	534	387
Max 10 GE ports2	34	50	82	130	180	130
Max 40 GE ports	8	12	20	32	44	32
Maximum forwarding performance (IPv4)	150 Mpps	210 Mpps	330 Mpps	510 Mpps	720 Mpps	510 Mpps
Height (RU)	4	5	11	14	19	21
Weight (chassis)	33 lbs (15 kg)	40 lbs (17.8 kg)	50 lbs (22.7 kg)	60 lbs (27.3 kg)	79.1 lbs (35.9 kg)	121 lbs (54.9 kg )

Thanks

[Joseph W. Doherty]

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Posting

Will you need PoE?  If so, in current 6500 series, believe you'll need IAs.  If you go with them, you could use the 6807 or 6880.

You might find the 6500 (especially with dual sups [for redundancy]) pricy compared to using a 2960 stack with a 3750 stack.  (BTW, rather than 3750 series, you might want to look at the 3650 or 3850 series, the latter supporting WLAPs.)

Also if you really want to minimize the logical device count, and allow for better performance, you might want to have just a single L3 stack.

Or, another option might be to use 4510.  With as many ports as your looking to set up, you might find this even less expensive than some L3 stacks and its performance can be much better.

[John Kim]

Thanks a lot for your input, Joseph.

I was just going over 4510R+E for a potential winner; It seems to have 10 slots, which gives me about 390 Gig ports, with two dual sups. Given that a single sup 8E can provide throughput as below table, I should think about going forward with a single sup.

Given that most users will be on 100Mbps at peak time and all other miscellaneous traffic, it would come down to around 20Gbps.

Model	Supervisor 8E	Supervisor 7E	Supervisor 7LE	Supervisor 6E	Supervisor 6LE	Supervisor V 10 GE
Documentation	Data Sheet	Data Sheet	Data Sheet	Data Sheet	Data Sheet	Data Sheet
Performance	Supervisor 8E	Supervisor 7E	Supervisor 7LE	Supervisor 6E	Supervisor 6LE	Supervisor V 10 GE
Switching Capacity	928 Gbps	848 Gbps	520 Gbps	320 Gbps	280 Gbps	136 Gbps
IPv4 Throughput	250 Mpps	250 Mpps	225 Mpps	250 Mpps	225 Mpps	102 Mpps
IPv6 Throughput	125 Mpps	125 Mpps	110 Mpps	125 Mpps	110 Mpps	Software Switched
Bandwidth/Slot	48 Gbps	48 Gbps	48 Gbps	24 Gbps	24 Gbps	6 Gbps
Scalability	Supervisor 8E	Supervisor 7E	Supervisor 7LE	Supervisor 6E	Supervisor 6LE	Supervisor V 10 GE
Number of Routes	256K for IPv4 128K for IPv6	256K for IPv4 128K for IPv6	64K for IPv4 32K for IPv6	256K for IPv4 128K for IPv6	64K for IPv4 32K for IPv6	128K for IPv4 1K for IPv6
Number of Packet Buffers	128K	128K	128K	64K	64K	32K
NetFlow Entries	128K	128K	128K	-	-	85K
MAC Learning Rate per Second	20K	20K	14K	13K	8K	8K
Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) Snoop Entries	12K	12K	12K	12K	3K	6K
Number of 10/100/1000 Ports	Up to 384 access	Up to 384 access	Up to 240 access	Up to 384 access	Up to 240 access	Up to 384 access
10 GE and 1 GE Uplinks	8 10 GE / 1 GE	4 10 GE / 1 GE	2 10 GE / 4 1 GE	2 10 GE / 4 1 GE (TwinGig)	2 10 GE / 4 1 GE (TwinGig)	2 10 GE + 4 1 GE
1 GE Non-Blocking Fiber Ports	192	192	120	138	120	48
10 GE Fiber Ports	96	96	60	30	30	-