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Upgrade Cisco Cat 6500 to 10G

I am looking to upgrade my pair of Cisco 6509 switches to support 10G networking for iSCSI and Hyper-V 2012 R2. My current environment consists of two Cisco 2960G top of rack switches connected via a two port LAG to the 6509s. I am looking to cost effectively upgrade my network to allow me to use 10G on four servers and a new iSCSI SAN. I am thinking about new top of rack switches and I would like to connect back to my 6509s with 10G, or I would also consider connecting everything back to my 6509s as I only need about 5 or 6 10G ports per switch.

I was told that if I added 10G supervisor that it would still be slow because all of my other modules are old. Is this true? Here is a representative output of the modules on one of my switches. What are my options? I got the high speed fan tray and 3000W power supplies when I upgraded to SUP32.

switch>sh mod
Mod Ports Card Type                              Model              Serial No.
--- ----- -------------------------------------- ------------------ -----------
  1   16  16 port 1000mb MTRJ ethernet           WS-X6416-GE-MT     SAD04360XXX
  3   48  48 port 10/100 mb RJ45                 WS-X6348-RJ-45     SAD04240XXX
  5   48  48-port 10/100/1000 RJ45 EtherModule   WS-X6148A-GE-TX    SAL1029VXXX
  6    9  Supervisor Engine 32 8GE (Active)      WS-SUP32-GE-3B     SAD11060XXX
  8   48  48 port 10/100 mb RJ45                 WS-X6348-RJ-45     SAD04240XXX
  9   48  48-port 10/100 mb RJ45                 WS-X6148-45AF      SAL09370XXX

Mod MAC addresses                       Hw    Fw           Sw           Status
--- ---------------------------------- ------ ------------ ------------ -------
  1  0001.6460.XXXX to 0001.6460.XXXX   1.1   5.4(2)       8.5(0.46)RFW Ok
  3  0001.9717.XXXX to 0001.9717.XXXX   1.1   5.3(1)       8.5(0.46)RFW Ok
  5  000a.b8de.XXXX to 000a.b8de.XXXX   1.4   8.4(1)       8.5(0.46)RFW Ok
  6  001a.a229.XXXX to 001a.a229.XXXX   4.5   12.2(18r)SX2 12.2(18)SXF7 Ok
  8  00b0.c2f5.XXXX to 00b0.c2f5.XXXX   1.1   5.3(1)       8.5(0.46)RFW Ok
  9  0015.6281.XXXX to 0015.6281.XXXX   3.0   8.3(1)       8.5(0.46)RFW Ok

Mod  Sub-Module                  Model              Serial       Hw     Status
---- --------------------------- ------------------ ----------- ------- -------
  3  Inline Power Module         WS-F6K-PWR                      1.0    Ok
  6  Policy Feature Card 3       WS-F6K-PFC3B       SAD1105XXXX  2.3    Ok
  6  Cat6k MSFC 2A daughterboard WS-F6K-MSFC2A      SAD1106XXXX  4.0    Ok
  8  Inline Power Module         WS-F6K-PWR                      1.0    Ok
  9  IEEE Voice Daughter Card    WS-F6K-FE48-AF     SAL0936XXXX  1.5    Ok

Mod  Online Diag Status
---- -------------------
  1  Pass
  3  Pass
  5  Pass
  6  Pass
  8  Pass
  9  Pass

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gsmartin

Q. Which line cards are supported by Sup32?
A. All classic line cards and all CEF256 line cards (without a Distributed Forwarding Card [DFC]) are supported at FCS.

Q. Which line cards are not supported by Sup32?
A. The following series of line cards are not supported by Sup32: WS-X67XX, WS-X68XX, SFM, and DFC-based cards.

SOLUTION

gsmartin

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kevinhsieh

ASKER

I didn't even know that there was a 10G Sup32. They're only nominally about $1000 on eBay right now. I certainly don't plan on replacing our current 6509s as they do everything I currently need them to do, old modules are really cheap, and we only pay for electricity + my time, so they're really inexpensive to keep, even if I only use them as a really large L3 distribution switch for my 100 Mb workstations with some Gig thrown in. I don't need massive performance out of my 6509s. Could I upgrade to the 10G Sup 32 and then use the 10G ports to connect to my 10G Force10/Arista/Brocade/Cisco L3 ToR switches? With 10G connecting the ToR to the Core, I am not worried about saturating those links, and I can use OSPF to handle routing and we can tolerate the several seconds it would take for RSTP to converge. It seems like a cheap way to keep my investment in the 6509s while still being able to invest in some higher performance networking.

kevinhsieh

ASKER

@gsmartin, can I go to the 10G Sup 32?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

gsmartin

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kevinhsieh

ASKER

I thought about going to a pair of 6509-E chassis. The problem is that I have so much cabling attached that it would take a while to migrate everything off so that I could pull the existing chassis out and replace it. It looks like DFC3x is only compatible with Sup720. Can I get ws-SUP720-3b with WS-X6708-10G-3C? Or would I need to go to SUP720-3C? This all makes me think about just going to Dell PowerConnect 8132 10G L3 switches!

kevinhsieh

ASKER

I ended up getting SUP720-3B and WS-X6708-10G-3C for 10G. I replaced all of my copper cards with WS-X6548-GE-45AF. I didn't realize that the WS-6548 cards are 8:1 oversubscribed, so I may get some WS-X6748-GE-TX where I don't need PoE. I was able to reuse one of my 6509 chassis and power supplies, and I bought a 6509E chassis. Everything was really dirt cheap other than the 10G card, the labor involved. I also needed to bump up my power to 208V.