[AusNOG] 10G Nexus 9k & other vendors for enterprise switching

[Nik Geyer]

Hi John,

Have used the N9k's in a few place, they're a pretty solid switch and no issues with what you need them to do. The VXLAN implementation with distributed routing and BGP EVPN control plane is nice too if you ever go down the routing path. There's also OpenStack ML2 drivers so you can do VXLAN in hardware on the N9k rather than using an x86 based network node.

Another switch you might like to consider is the HP 5900AF-48XG-4QSFP. Has 48x 1/10GE SFP+ ports, 4x 40G QSFP ports and one thing HP do well is big buffers. They can do fabric extension with the 5700 series I believe. They're also fully featured with L2 switching, routing, MPLS etc. with no additional licensing fees.

Cheers,
Nik.

Sent from my iPhone

> On 6 Jun 2015, at 10:28 am, John Dalton <johndaltonsa at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi there,
> 
> I'm planning for the next financial year and amongst other vendors & product lines, the Nexus 9k has come into consideration.  The use case is enterprise 10G (VMware/storage/converaged infrastructure).  Initially it will be L2 to immediately benefit from 10G, and in the future, routing converging on the new infrastructure.  Port count required in the near future is 12-16 SFP+ per switch, with redundant switches, and no plans to utilise 40G (aside from potential trunking between standalone switches).  Possibility of aggregation or fabric extension to this new infrastructure in the future as older equipment is replaced.
> 
> Does anyone have any experience with the (relatively) new Nexus 9k in standalone or ACI mode for the above use case?  I haven't seen a lot on the ML about the 9K range.
> 
> If anyone can comment, how does it compare against alternative's we are looking at (Brocade ICX7750, Arista 7050x, Juniper EX4550).  Is there any other vendors or mdoels of the above vendors that you can suggest my team should consider?
> 
> Any responses much appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> John
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