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Show 16 — Big Hot and Heavy Switches — Part 1

A detailed look at the Big, Hot and Heavy Ethernet Switches with a large crew to talk about their practical experiences on design, selection and performance of Cisco Nexus switches. The result ? We don’t think the Nexus switches are very exciting, HP Flex10 modules are a problem, and so much more.

Due to people commitments we recorded a double length show which will be released in two parts. This is Part 1 and Part 2 will be released next weekend.

VSS & vPC — the real experience

We started with a look at the differences between Cisco’s Virtual Switching System (VSS) and their Virtual Port Channel (vPC) implementation of Multi-Chassis Etherchannel and what our preferences are for choosing and implementing. We like vPC both from a design and implementation perspectives but our experiences of VSS have been very poor and we don’t choose to use it in the Data Centre. In practical way we don’t like the way that VSS is conceptually the same as a stackable switch.

We also don’t have much time on the Catalyst 4500 because they aren’t used in our designs. Also, there are too many modules and Supervisors, and the technology is confusing. The lack of architecture information is poor.

Cisco Fabric Extender switches

We had a short look at the QoS implementation on the Cat6500, and expressed our dissatisfaction with the configuration and consistency of the implementation and some surprising tips on how to solve the QoS problem.

Service Modules

We discuss the use of Service Modules in the C6500 chassis and our experiences.

The Guests

You can find Jeremy Filliben at http://jeremyfilliben.com and @jfilliben.

You can find Steve Rossen on @steve

You can find Ivan Pepelnjak at http://ioshints.info and on @ioshints.

IOS Hints Live — San Jose September 2010

You can book to join the event at ioshintsdatacenter.eventbrite.com/. There are only a limited number of seats at this unique event where Ivan Pepelnjak and Greg Ferro will both be available to discuss, review and develop your designs.

Feedback

Follow the Packet Pushers on Twitter (@packetpushers |  Greg @etherealmind |  Dan@rovingengineer |  Ethan @ecbanks) and send your queries and comments about the show to  [email protected].  We want to hear from you!

About the author

Greg Ferro

Greg Ferro is the co-host of Packet Pushers. After surviving 25 years in Enterprise IT with only minor damage, he uses his networking expertise for good in the service of others by deep diving on technology and industry. His unique role as an inspirational cynicist brings a sense of fun, practicality and sheer talent to world of data networking and its place in a world of clouds.

He blogs regularly at http://etherealmind.com and the podcasts are at http://packetpushers.net.

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