Cisco Nexus 9000 core + FEX or ToR switches? [closed]

Question

So I currently have two racks where I need a bunch of 10GbE ports (currently using SFP+ TwinAx cables), and I want to replace my current switch.

Basically there are three options I could do:

1. 1x9504 with the 2x 48x10GbE linecard + 2xFEX for 1GbE copper
2. same as before just 2x9504 for redundancy
3. 2x9396PX

While I understand that the 9396PX is designed to be actually a top of the rack switch and the 9504 is the core one, on base price there doesn't seem to be a huge difference even if I add in the FEXes.

Also I understand that the 9504 can have redundant supervisors and fabric modules, so with 2 linecards and running vPC to all servers I should be able to survive a linecard failure.

Which one would you go for?

Nexus 7k would be an option for the core (with the FEX), but I'm a bit afraid Cisco won't push it as much on the roadmap as the 9k line.

Answer 1

When you are upgrading your switch, you need to understand your current usage, ask more questions, collect more data.

• How many users are there in your network? [Mac table size]
• Are you planning to expand your network in the future? [Do you need a topology where you can accommodate FEXs]
• What is your network topology? [9K switch is deployed in the core]
• Do you just need 10G connectivity between your IT servers? [If all you have is few servers, you can buy an less expensive box]
• Do you have Servers running VMs?
• How much of High Availability is needed in your environment? Are you running banking servers behind these boxes?

Because I had worked in N7K software development team, I have an idea how these boxes are deployed by different customers.

Answer 2

We ended up actually getting 2x9508, each with 2 36-port 40GbE line-cards. With breakouts, this gives us 144 * 4 10GbE ports. Ought to be enough for a while :-)