We have a pair of Cisco Nexus 3548 switches setup with HSRP acting as the network gateway for each of our network segments in a datacenter/VMware environment.
We wish to replace the Cisco Nexus switches with a pair of Juniper QFX switches. My understanding is that we can't run HRSP on the Junipers as that's a Cisco proprietary protocol so we'll need to replace that with VRRP (unless someone can suggest a better option).
My question is how can we (With the least amount of downtime) transition from the Cisco's to the Junipers. My initial thoughts would be to:
- Setup the Junipers with VRRP but with different IP addresses, test the config
- On deployment day disconnect the Junipers
- Change the VRRP IPs via the console to contain the IPs of the Ciscos
- Shutdown all of our VMs
- Shutdown the Cisco switches
- Connect the Junipers
- Power everything back up
Can anyone suggest a more elegant/less disruptive way of doing this?
Thanks!