Network pics thread

WesM63 said:
That is a Cisco WLSE. Old school autonomous ap management. (WLC replaced it when lightweight AP's were introduced)
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I had a feeling that is what it was, but with no mention of wireless I didn't want to assume
 
xphil3 said:
Im with just2cool on this one lightworker. This seems like a poor architectural decision for many reasons and and better switch is something that you need, maybe not now but in the near future. Ill list a few that come to mind and maybe you can explain why you indeed didn't consider these.

1. This switch is NOT non-blocking and minority oversubscribed at the port level. Non-blocking is essential at the distribution/agg especially in an SP environment. Buffers get full fast and intern lots of packet loss. There goes your good rep and possible SLA.

2. The switch can only forward a possible 4.8Gpbs of traffic through the ASIC for ALL 24 ports or in your case 9Gbps. Depending on how new the switch is the number of ASICs may varry(1-2, newer gear 4), which still is a HUGE bottle neck with how many users you said was on this network(3000+). Maximum of 32Gpbs forwarding to the supervisor with dual ring, and older 3560's will have a 16Gbps ring to the supervisor.

3. If you are indeed shaping/policing your customer traffic to 10Mpbs, thats still a total of ~30Gbps *potential* total traffic through that distribution/agg 3560 switch, this is a clear problem. If even half your customers are maxing out their bandwidth(not uncommon at all) you're HOSED :eek:

4. That looks like a 10/100 switch, so you're total bandwidth is still only about 11Gpbs with the ASIC limitations I mentioned. How are you going account for scalability when you start adding new customers?

Any way that you look at it, that switch probably should be there with the *potential* problems, its not scalable and a risk. This is now a SP network, and accordingly it should be built like one(you have the right idea with the ASR 1k:D). I still love your posts, sexy ass gear and very nice cabling! I wish I could post of some of the stuff I work with, people would be nutting for years.
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Hey xphil3, I realize you have more experience with this stuff than I do, so realize that I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just defending what gear we have in place. With that being said, it is important to realize that we don't have massive budgets and we also have to deal with legacy equipment and infrastructure that that we didn't pick, so we make the best of what we have :)

It seems like you guys keep referring to that 3560 as an aggregation switch--it's not. Due to the way the building was wired, some client ports were punched down to the same closet as our core gear. That 3560 has a direct link to the 3750G's up top and ONLY serves 48 users in an access switch capacity. There is no other traffic routed through this switch.

The 3750G at the core has forwarding performance of just over 38 million pps with the 32gbps switching backplane, we monitor all the pertinent statistics on buffers, cpu, mem etc, and I can assure you it's not being overloaded right now :)

Customer traffic is shaped, but we don't make any guarantees of bandwidth availability, we simply impose soft limits on bandwidth to keep performance in line. Coming up with a 30Gbps max internal bandwidth estimation is simply inaccurate--due to the way our shaping appliances work, the appliance throttles back the client connections, it doesn't just queue the extra data. It is also important to remember that even during peak hours, we see on average 30% of our endpoints actively utilizing the network and by nature, casual internet browsing at this level of subscription is not a continuous traffic stream.

Anyways, getting back to the main point here, which is that those switches are adequate for our needs and performance now and will be until the next switching upgrade in approximately 2 years. So yes you are correct, having 3750G's as a core switch architecture is not scalable, BUT it does work, and it works well for our current requirements.

When the time comes to bring up some new buildings, we're aware that we will need to replace these. We got lucky getting the ASR approved this year ahead of expansion, but the switches are going to have to wait.

Cheers
 
CatOS... is there any network guy that actually prefers this over IOS?

I once met someone that did -- he liked how the config was brief. As for myself, I dread when I log into a device that says "Cisco Systems Console" instead of "User Access Verification" :D

Can't wait till we phase the last of these suckers out.

Also, lightworker -- yes, I was under the impression that it was a distro/agg switch. If it's just access, 3560 is fine for that :). Just be careful with those 3750s -- they're not much different from the 3560. But yeah, I'm sure it will suffice for now.
 
just2cool said:
CatOS... is there any network guy that actually prefers this over IOS?

I once met someone that did -- he liked how the config was brief. As for myself, I dread when I log into a device that says "Cisco Systems Console" instead of "User Access Verification" :D

Can't wait till we phase the last of these suckers out.
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lol, I'm glad I've only ever worked on one device running CatOS, and that was to upgrade it to IOS :) (A 6509 at a hospital)

3750's at the core?! Do you work for Cisco? *hides from xphil*

Seriously, we used to have a cisco engineer that would constantly suggest 3750's for the core of a network. Don't get me wrong, in some situations it's fine, but not where he was recommending it.
 
Lightworker said:
Hey xphil3, I realize you have more experience with this stuff than I do, so realize that I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just defending what gear we have in place. With that being said, it is important to realize that we don't have massive budgets and we also have to deal with legacy equipment and infrastructure that that we didn't pick, so we make the best of what we have :)

It seems like you guys keep referring to that 3560 as an aggregation switch--it's not. Due to the way the building was wired, some client ports were punched down to the same closet as our core gear. That 3560 has a direct link to the 3750G's up top and ONLY serves 48 users in an access switch capacity. There is no other traffic routed through this switch.

The 3750G at the core has forwarding performance of just over 38 million pps with the 32gbps switching backplane, we monitor all the pertinent statistics on buffers, cpu, mem etc, and I can assure you it's not being overloaded right now :)

Customer traffic is shaped, but we don't make any guarantees of bandwidth availability, we simply impose soft limits on bandwidth to keep performance in line. Coming up with a 30Gbps max internal bandwidth estimation is simply inaccurate--due to the way our shaping appliances work, the appliance throttles back the client connections, it doesn't just queue the extra data. It is also important to remember that even during peak hours, we see on average 30% of our endpoints actively utilizing the network and by nature, casual internet browsing at this level of subscription is not a continuous traffic stream.

Anyways, getting back to the main point here, which is that those switches are adequate for our needs and performance now and will be until the next switching upgrade in approximately 2 years. So yes you are correct, having 3750G's as a core switch architecture is not scalable, BUT it does work, and it works well for our current requirements.

When the time comes to bring up some new buildings, we're aware that we will need to replace these. We got lucky getting the ASR approved this year ahead of expansion, but the switches are going to have to wait.

Cheers
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Dude, very nice reply. Its on a rare occasion that people on these forums actually respond to something intelligently with factual information and for that I approve, sir! :D

Like just2cool, I was also under the impression that this was an distro/agg switch... which is NOT the case *but* :p you're going to have the identical problems with a 3750 as you would with a 3560(they're identical switche's with different CPU's). They have the same ASIC format and same backplane ring for ASIC --> CPU communication.

Now, I got my 30Gpbs number from your previous post that you said there were 3000+ users connected behind this "distro"(now core) switch. if you're policing at 15Mbps to the end user, thats still 15mbps x 30000 users = ~30Gbps total. Again, this is potential and not likely to happen unless every single user you service is transmitting data at the SAME time. Granted, you said that you have appliances that limit these bursts but they would then become the bottleneck in the network. How much traffic(user wise) did you guys calculate as your bottleneck currently?

One quick aside, when you police something you're throwing all traffic away that exceeds a specific threshold. When you shape, you queue back traffic(into your hardware and software queues) so traffic isn't intentionally dropped.


Wes - shhh..... its not my fault that your SE didn't know what he was doing :p

just2cool, sign online dude... Im back on the CCIE wagon!
 
I understand your point with shaping/policing, and that is correct in regards to the Cisco way of traffic shaping. :p

The Blue Coat appliances we use don't just queue up or tail drop the traffic. I'm not an expert on their innerworkings, but I believe they actively modify header fields like the tcp window size to throttle the connection back all the way from the appliance to the end-user. So if a user has a GigE port to a switch, and they're FTP'ing a file to a web server, it doesn't automatically consume 1gb/s of our bandwidth, the appliance will throttle the actual streams so that the client's connection doesn't transmit any more data than is actively passing in/out the WAN. The same principle works for both inbound and outbound traffic.

These boxes are expensive, but well worth it :cool:

xphil3 said:
Wes - shhh..... its not my fault that your SE didn't know what he was doing :p
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We met with a team of Cisco SE's back in December planning the refresh of our routing/switching infrastructure here, and check out the router/switch combo they spec'd for us:

Cisco 7301 chassis, 512MB memory, A/C power,64MB Flash
Catalyst 3560E 12 Ten GE (X2) ports, IPS software

I'm not too sure that I can say that would have worked as well...
 
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just2cool said:
CatOS... is there any network guy that actually prefers this over IOS?

I once met someone that did -- he liked how the config was brief. As for myself, I dread when I log into a device that says "Cisco Systems Console" instead of "User Access Verification" :D

Can't wait till we phase the last of these suckers out.

Also, lightworker -- yes, I was under the impression that it was a distro/agg switch. If it's just access, 3560 is fine for that :). Just be careful with those 3750s -- they're not much different from the 3560. But yeah, I'm sure it will suffice for now.
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I can't wait until I can get another chassis switch for 5$ :)
 
just2cool said:
CatOS... is there any network guy that actually prefers this over IOS?

I once met someone that did -- he liked how the config was brief. As for myself, I dread when I log into a device that says "Cisco Systems Console" instead of "User Access Verification" :D

Can't wait till we phase the last of these suckers out.

Also, lightworker -- yes, I was under the impression that it was a distro/agg switch. If it's just access, 3560 is fine for that :). Just be careful with those 3750s -- they're not much different from the 3560. But yeah, I'm sure it will suffice for now.
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We have a lot of CatOS stuff at my current job, I hate it. I'd never used it before this place.
 
I know it's not much, but it's mine... and I'm just starting out so it's ok for my little home use.



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I know those cases are a bt heavy for a 2 post... they aren't there anymore I'm in the process of down sizing and putting the big cases on the bottom, I have a 2nd 3ft rack I'm using for support on the bottom so it's like 4 post with a 2 post top half for switches n stuff
 
Call of Duty 4 servers... only reason I used a 4U case was because I "thought" I needed a big Quad-Core processor and the fact Newegg had it free shipping and $20 off... it was teh cheapest they had... I'm going to replace it with a shallow 2U Norco case.. 45nm Dual-core... MicroATX.... should lower power and heat...

Eventually I wanna learn how to setup and exchange server and figure out how to do my own e-mail and all that. I signed up for TechNet so I could use that to learn how to really use Microsoft's offerings better.

I'll get some more pics in here when I get more stuff up...
 
I have to say CatOS is not that bad. I just got done setting up my 2948g-l3 + 2 2948g with multiple vlans and routing between them and it all works like a charm. I'm happy with it.
 
Greatone123: Did you build that rack yourself? If so can you give me some specs on it like what size pieces of metal you bought, i'm starting to think it would be easier for me to just build my own that to find one at all.
 
moose517 said:
Greatone123: Did you build that rack yourself? If so can you give me some specs on it like what size pieces of metal you bought, i'm starting to think it would be easier for me to just build my own that to find one at all.
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If you live in the U.S. look on Craigslist or eBay for nearby sellers who will do pickups. That is the best way I know to get one. I was lucky and got mine from my father's work. They were getting rid of three of them.
 
I wish I had a super fast net connection, or atleast another ISP to use to bond my connection then. I live out in the middle of nowhere and I have to use a WISP, I am happy with my speeds, but I still want more.
 
CaseyBlackburn said:
I wish I had a super fast net connection, or atleast another ISP to use to bond my connection then. I live out in the middle of nowhere and I have to use a WISP, I am happy with my speeds, but I still want more.
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why not get another WISP? :confused:
 
I am calling you on that speedtest on WISP there is no way you can get a 8mbps connection on wireless. heck I work for local ISP as a tech support and the fastest wireless connection that I seen was 1.5mbps.


CaseyBlackburn said:
I wish I had a super fast net connection, or atleast another ISP to use to bond my connection then. I live out in the middle of nowhere and I have to use a WISP, I am happy with my speeds, but I still want more.
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timreichhart said:
I am calling you on that speedtest on WISP there is no way you can get a 8mbps connection on wireless. heck I work for local ISP as a tech support and the fastest wireless connection that I seen was 1.5mbps.
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There's plenty of wireless gear for WISP's than can do more than 1.5mbs.

I have some older Breezecom stuff that does 3mbps just fine
 
I work with breeze modems all the time and the fastest I seen on them was 1.5mbps. point to me a WISP's with website that offer server over 1.5mbps.
 
Shockey said:
why not get another WISP? :confused:
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There is only one WISP out here that is affordable and fast. The connection I get is not set at a speed, I get the full bandwidth available at the local tower. So if I got another modem from the same company I would have no difference in speed since I'm just taking bandwidth available from my other connection from the tower.

timreichhart said:
I am calling you on that speedtest on WISP there is no way you can get a 8mbps connection on wireless. heck I work for local ISP as a tech support and the fastest wireless connection that I seen was 1.5mbps.
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There is plenty of gear available for greater than 1.5mbps. My WISP uses Motorola Canopy gear, I even got faster then 1.5mbps when my WISP used SmartBridges Air Bridge.
 
timreichhart said:
I work with breeze modems all the time and the fastest I seen on them was 1.5mbps. point to me a WISP's with website that offer server over 1.5mbps.
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Well my service speed is locked in by contract from previous company that has been bought by someone who was then bought by Internet America. So my service plan isn't offered but it is what I get. I can prove it by video if we really want to get doubting.
 
timreichhart said:
to caseyblackburn I just look at http://www.internetamerica.com/products_and_services/broadband/?page=plans and the fastest they have is 1.5mbps so I think your BS so IM throwing the

it states that connection is 1.5mbps but surf up to 3/4.5 mbps if you pay for little bit more.
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Dude, he just said he gets a speed different to that advertised because it was locked in on a contract that was taken over by them. No need to lower the tone by needlessly telling a guy he's a liar about his own connection.
 
I am just saying there is no way he could get 8mbps connection on wireless noway if he was able to get that I congrats him for that connection speed but like I said there is no way of 8mbps on wireless connection.

so I could say I am getting 50mbps connection on my FTTH connection but I know really I am only getting 5mbps

and to novadude I wasnt trolling your the one who is trolling.
 
timreichhart said:
I am just saying there is no way he could get 8mbps connection on wireless noway if he was able to get that I congrats him for that connection speed but like I said there is no way of 8mbps on wireless connection.

so I could say I am getting 50mbps connection on my FTTH connection but I know really I am only getting 5mbps

and to novadude I wasnt trolling your the one who is trolling.
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If I was lying about it why does the image come from http://speedtest.net as the host and why does the image say my WISP? If I was gonna lie about speed wouldn't I lie and say it was something better like 25mbps? Plenty of other people on here have faster connections then what I showed. Bragging about a decent speed is so pointless. Can you explain why it is impossible to get 8mbps on a wireless connection though, PM me though, we've filled this thread up with enough excess stuff.
 
Simmer down children :eek:

Here's a pic of my spare gear that I rotate in and out of my lab setup:

Cisco Catalyst 3500XL's, 3550's, 3560's, 2900's

Cisco Routers 3625, 3745, 7204VXR (the 3700 and 7200 both have T3 serial cards)

Two Cisco ASA 5505's

Two Packeteer (now BlueCoat :p) PacketShapers.

And a little linksys router :D

IMG_0080.JPG
 
Lightworker said:
Simmer down children :eek:

Here's a pic of my spare gear that I rotate in and out of my lab setup:

Cisco Catalyst 3500XL's, 3550's, 3560's, 2900's

Cisco Routers 3625, 3745, 7204VXR (the 3700 and 7200 both have T3 serial cards)

Two Cisco ASA 5505's

Two Packeteer (now BlueCoat :p) PacketShapers.

And a little linksys router :D

http://exfusionx.com/media/net/IMG_0080.JPG
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Wow, thats a lot of stuff just sitting there, i'll take some of it off your hands :D When i get my network rack this week i'll post up for everyone to see
 
Just thought I'd throw up another pic, the labels on the one switch are kind of funny because they are old and obviously un-used ports. I need to go re-label them :(

DSC_4697_DxO2_raw.jpg
 
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