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Cisco Routing in a DataCenter Enviroment

Hi all,

This is my very fist post on here!!

Currently we are in the process of having a datacenter design / network design. I know quite a bit about networks and routing but when it comes to a datacenter level im a bit fuzzy so hopefully on here your able to answer my questions.

Right,

The DC is going to be in the UK we are planning on having 4 independant providers of bandwidth with 10Gig lines. We wish to have 2 "meet me" points into the building for redudancy. What is going to be the best form of Cisco Router that is able to A) deal with more providers in the furture deal with Ddos attacks C) work in partnership with the other "meet me" router so for any reason the router failed the other one would take the load.

The data center is estimated to have enough space for around 4000 racks so we need something that can connect straight into a fibre backbone and be under constant abuse.

Hopefully you have enough information to work on its just i want to get a insight before the network design company come back to me with there plans etc.

Thanks in advanced guys!

Tom Sanders

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Accepted answers

mick

we use two Cisco 6509's as a backbone. internet feeds are connected to an external stack. the stack has a connection to each 6509 for redundancy. you can then build seperate server stacks with redundant links to the 6509's. we use Cisco 3750's in a stack of 2 switches so we dont over subscribe the back bone. each stack can then be setup in different areas of the data centre where needed for servers.

we also have firewalls sitting between the internet and the 6509's.

i dont know what meet me is. never heard of it.

All comments

mick

we also have firewalls sitting between the internet and the 6509's.

i dont know what meet me is. never heard of it.

tomsanders

Hi,

Thanks for your reply,

Whats your opinion on Juniper Routers / Switches?

Thanks

mkelly2

The 6509 is a great piece of hardware but keep in mind that it is a few generations outdated. If you are looking at 10g capacity the 6500 is expensive.

The nexus 7k is the new datacenter switch from Cisco. It is by far the best switch cisco has ever made.

If I had a choice I would go Juniper. If you are looking for 10g routing and firewalling(you mentioned being able to stop ddos attacks) The Juniper SRX line should fit your needs.

jswan

This seems like it's outside the scope of Network Configuration Manager, and it's a huge question. The first thing you want to do is define which features you might need in which parts of the network. For example, it looks like you are asking specifically about your ISP-uplink block. You'll probably need features here that you won't need in your core, distribution, and access blocks, and vice versa.

Rather than looking at specific switches you might want to define a detailed list of features that you need and talk to your SEs to find the right products. Some issues you need to look at (in no particular order):

RIB/FIB size in your BGP routers
ACL TCAM size
QoS TCAM size
MPLS/VRF support, if applicable (are all required features supported in VRFs?)
NetFlow cache size
uRPF performance, if applicable
multicast features/performance, if applicable
IPv6 support in hardware (you'll need it eventually)

For example: the Nexus 7k series is an great high speed 10 Gig aggregation switch, but last time I checked it didn't support MPLS (this may have changed, I don't know), if that's something you need. The Catalyst 6500 series is a tried and true platform at many different layers of the network, but at least with the Sup720 it has NetFlow cache, ACL TCAM, and uRPF limitations that can cause problems at very large scales, so if those are important features to you, you'll need to think carefully about it.