48 port 10 gig ethernet switch

[spidey07]

And it's 1 RU. Pretty impressive. List is about 36K with a 16 port 10 GE expansion slot. Still have to buy the optics or use twin-ax but for top of rack or high performance computing this thing is impressive. Can also do fiber channel over ethernet or fiber channel.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps9670/data_sheet_c78-618603.html

 

[err]

sweet
but I am seeing a lot more ISP in our area deploying force10 for their 10gbps switching. Cost about 60% less
http://www.force10networks.com/products/s4810.asp

I wonder how it really stacks up in backplane performance

 

[drebo]

That'd make a good SAN switch, in place of 4500Es. Cheaper, too.

Or for 10G access-layer. Add Layer 3 and it'd probably make a good distribution switch as well.

 

[spidey07]

That'd make a good SAN switch, in place of 4500Es. Cheaper, too.

Or for 10G access-layer. Add Layer 3 and it'd probably make a good distribution switch as well.

The L3 performance isn't full line rate on all ports like it is for L2. Only 160 Gbs. Also this switch has "universal ports", where any port can be 1/10 gig ethernet, FCoE or native fiber channel.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Damn, put one on my xmas list

 

[jorken]

The L3 performance isn't full line rate on all ports like it is for L2. Only 160 Gbs. Also this switch has "universal ports", where any port can be 1/10 gig ethernet, FCoE or native fiber channel.

Think you need a module to run native FC on this guy (N55-M8P8FP). It's a nice beefy datacenter switch no doubt. I wouldn't mind seeing more fulle 1/10Gbs switch offerings from cisco that isn't a chassis module sometime in the near future for the folks who don't need a chassis based switch or the unified options.

 

[alpineranger]

Not sure this has it, but some of the newer switches are cut through (not store and fwd) for 10GE, including for L3 switching. Of course, that means full line rate, but you also get super low latency for the applications that really benefit from that. Nexus 3k offers a 1RU I believe that does that, although it's significantly more expensive than this.

 

[Cable God]

Looks really good, but I like and use Arista Networks gear for basic L2 top-of-rack 10G duty. The cost per port is far lower on those. You can't beat the Nexus 5xxx in L3 though.

 

[alkemyst]

We just demoed the Nexus 7000 last week at my office.

 

[spidey07]

We just demoed the Nexus 7000 last week at my office.

Meh. I've got 4 7018s on pallets in a datacenter.

Needless to say they are a tad bit deep. Almost too deep. Damn fabric modules have to touch all 18 slots.

 

[alkemyst]

Meh. I've got 4 7018s on pallets in a datacenter.

Needless to say they are a tad bit deep. Almost too deep. Damn fabric modules have to touch all 18 slots.

This was just for our personal lab, we have another two in our Atlanta lab. We have many in the field.

 

[spidey07]

This was just for our personal lab, we have another two in our Atlanta lab. We have many in the field.

So what did you do for the heat on an 18?

 

[Railgun]

The newer 5Ks will do cut through, and on jumbo frames too, which may matter to some.

We have quite a few 7Ks deployed, but you need to wait for some new modules to be released to really get performance out of them. In some cases, they're slower than 6500s.

 

[alkemyst]

So what did you do for the heat on an 18?

Not sure what you are asking, we have a 10 slot? We are using two a/c's and we did end up having to have it tweaked several times due to them freezing up.

We found that was caused mostly by the building management closing exhaust dampners on the weekend.

If you have doubts

 

[cmetz]

The L3 performance isn't full line rate on all ports like it is for L2. Only 160 Gbs.

This has warning klaxons going off on my head. I can't think of a sane architecture where that would be the case as long as you are hitting in the flow cache. In my personal experience, I've seen cisco cut engineering corners all over the place, and usually where you see an anomaly in performance, that's an area you should start asking a lot of very pointed questions.

 

[cmetz]

BTW, all, how have the Nexus switches been working out for you? I haven't touched one yet, but the appear to be really, really promising products if you can get over the price tag.

 

[spidey07]

This has warning klaxons going off on my head. I can't think of a sane architecture where that would be the case as long as you are hitting in the flow cache. In my personal experience, I've seen cisco cut engineering corners all over the place, and usually where you see an anomaly in performance, that's an area you should start asking a lot of very pointed questions.

It's a daughter card. Like the fabric ASICs can only do L2 and they just bolted on L3. The daughter card likey just does the inline rewrite and keeps CEF tables. Also keep in mind these are cut-through switches so it would be difficult to get the fabric to do inline rewrite unless it was built for that from the ground up. I wouldn't use it for L3, that's not it's place. Data Center networks are all becoming huge flat networks anyway. Not that I like it, but that's what's happening.

I've been loving the nexus stuff. Active/Active is a huge advantage. The 6120/6140 and UCS has been amazing in it's performance and simplicity.

 

[ultimatebob]

Grr... All that cool technology, and we still have 10/100 Ethernet in our office. Wired with cat 3 cabling, just to make things worse :|