We have been using Cisco Catalyst 4948 switches with a layer 3 image in our data center as core switches for a small network. Due to the nature of the traffic on the network we regularly experience microbursts that non-data center class switches, such as 3560Es and 3750Gs are unable to handle without dropping packets.
We are looking to deploy a similar network setup in a new data center and want to have 10Gb trunks between the two core switches so we are looking at using Catalyst 4948E or Nexus 3048 switches. I noticed that the Nexus 3048s only have a shared buffer of 9MB, while the 4948s we currently use have a shared buffer of 16MB and the 4948E has a shared buffer of 17.5MB. Given the problems we have in the past handling microbursts I am hesitant to go with a switch that has smaller buffers than what we are using now. However, I am unsure of is if the comparing the shared buffer size on the switches is an apples-to-apples comparison or if there are differences in how the switches operate that make the smaller buffer on the Nexus a non-issue. Can anyone shed any light on this? Also, are there any other differences between the Catalyst 4848E and Nexus 3048 switches that I should take into account when choosing which one to go with? Thanks. --Vincent _______________________________________________ cisco-nsp mailing list [email protected] https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
