Core Switching : Juniper EX8200 Vs Cisco 6800

Today I am going to talk about the Core switching where I am taking two vendors and compare the features between them. Here in the specific switch in the Core we can have two different models for which we are comparing the features. The two Switches are Juniper EX8200 and Cisco 6800 Core switches


So if you are going to compare the switches, both switches are excellent with the high capacity backplane and has so many features. Although Cisco come up with the other model Cisco catalyst 9K which is newly in the market and has huge impact to other vendors.

Here I am not taking the case of Cisco catalyst 9K, the comparison is between the Cisco 6800 and the Juniper EX8208 Switch.

Juniper EX8200 Core Switch

Let's talk about the one of the most important core switch with 8xI/O module and the name is Juniper  EX8208 modular Ethernet switch while 16x I/O module in EX8216 Core switch. Both the switches are powerful switches with a member of the Juniper Networks EX Series Ethernet Switches product family, offers a flexible, powerful, and modular platform that delivers the performance, scalability, and high availability required for today’s high-density data center, campus aggregation, and core switching environments.

What will be the Capacity of the total capacity of the switch ?

Taking one at a time, Juniper EX8208 Switch. I knew the capacity required at the core is huge and i think this switch is capable of providing high capacity. With a total capacity of up to 6.2 Tbps, the EX8208 system provides a complete, end-to-end solution for the high-performance networks of today and into the future. 

How many ports can it support if it is fully configured ?

With the help of Juniper EX8208 chassis fully configured, it can support up to 384 Gigabit Ethernet or 64 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports at wire speed, or 320 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports in shared bandwidth applications, delivering one of the industry’s highest 10-Gigabit Ethernet port densities. 

Fig 1.1- Juniper EX8200 Core Switches topology

What will be the total capacity per slot ?

The EX8208 features a switch fabric that is capable of delivering 320 Gbps (full duplex) per slot, enabling scalable wire-rate performance on all ports for any packet size. The passive backplane design supports a future capacity of up to 6.2 Tbps, providing a built-in migration path to next-generation deployments. 

What are the other features of the Juniper EX8208 Switch?

Below are some of the features which includes Hardware specifications, Fabric, High availability, Layer 2 Features, Layer 3 Features and Multicast support.

• Hardware Features :14 RU; 21 in (53 cm) deep; 17.25 in (43.8 cm) wide; 8 dedicated I/O slots; 6.2 Tbps backplane capacity with Dedicated data, control, and management Plane
• Fabric :320 Gbps (full duplex) per slot fabric capacity; 2+1 redundancy with dual SREs and SF card; Routing engine ;1+1 redundancy; Master and backup SREs and 2 gigabytes DRAM; 2 gigabytes Flash memory 
• High Availability: Transparent failover and network recovery; Graceful Route Engine Switchover (GRES); Nonstop Routing (NSR); Non-Stop So ware Upgrade (NSSU); Nonstop Bridging (NSB)
• Layer 2 features : Jumbo frames (9216 Bytes); 4,096 VLANs and VLAN Registration Protocol (GVRP), Private VLANs; 802.3ad – Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP); STP, RSTP. MSTP, VLAN Spanning Tree Protocol (VSTP) and Redundant Trunk Group (RTG) 
• Layer 3 features : Static, RIP, OSPF, VRRP, BGP, IS-IS, IPv6, BFD, GRE tunnelings and MPLS 
• Multicast :Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) v1/v2/v3 with Snooping and Protocol Independent Multicast PIM-SM, PIM- SSM, PIM-DM, MSDP 

Cisco 6800 Catalyst Switch

Now let's talk about Cisco 6800 Switch. There are lot of models in the Cisco 6800 Series models which replaced Cisco 6500 but here in this case we are taking Cisco 6807 switch as an example.

Capable of delivering up to 11.4 terabits per second of system bandwidth capacity and 440 Gbps of per-slot bandwidth for all slots. A system configured for VSS is capable of delivering 22.8 terabits per second of system bandwidth.The variable speed fans in the fan tray can handle individual fan failures (N+1 redundancy) and still provide sufficient cooling to the chassis

The Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL Modular Switch is ideally suited for enterprise core and aggregation environments and offers industry-leading Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The platform is also ready to support 40 Gigabit Ethernet.

The Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL chassis offers integrated resiliency by providing 1+1 supervisor engine redundancy, redundant fans, and N+1 power supply redundancy, thereby limiting network downtime and making sure of workforce productivity, customer satisfaction, and profitability.

Fig 1.2- Cisco 6807-X Switch Specs

The Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL Modular Switch is built on the Cisco Catalyst 6500 DNA and runs the same Cisco IOS Software operating system as the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches. At FCS the switch will support all the features supported on the Cisco Catalyst 6500-E Series Switch.

At 10 rack unit, the Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL chassis is smaller than the Cisco Catalyst 6506-E chassis while providing an extra slot. This coupled with support for the Supervisor Engine 6T, Supervisor Engine 2T and its family of line cards means upgrading the campus backbone can be done with simplicity, speed, and full investment protection.

Cisco 6800 switch supports all the features of Layer 2, Layer 3, Multicasting, VSS and others which i mentioned there in the Juniper EX8200 Switches. 

Cisco comes up with the SD-Access features which is creating the Fabric with automation and working as a DNA architecture for that you can take Cisco 6800 switch as a core switch. Cisco 6800 supports DNA/SD-Access architecture.