Are you designing your Campus : Design your LAN network Part I
Today I am going to talk about building a Campus network which includes your LAN, WAN and Security Firewalls. We will evaluate all the vendors and will try to put the best things in a campus environment. As we will take an example to build a Campus environment which includes LAN, Business Firewall and the WAN by which the traffic will be routed to connect to the different sites across the globe or to surf the internet.
Part-I
Here in my starting discussion on the campus architecture, I will talk about the LAN networks.
We will discuss on Part-II and Part-III
Part-II, we will talk about the WAN networks and in Part-III we will talk about the campus business firewalls. We can design your campus on the basis of your requirement as we have the team of experts with us.
As now we talk about the LAN network, we can deploy this LAN network as a traditional switching tier architecture or we can deploy LAN as next generation Fabric network. As per the survey of the RouteXP marketing team, enterprises now building the LAN networks on Next generation Fabric networks in a green field while for brown field it’s a refresh with the same traditional switching architecture.
For Traditional LAN network, Cisco and Aruba leading the space. Cisco has the major market capture with the best qualities and the support which i guess you can’t get it from any other vendor in the market. If you have small network go with the Collapsed core architecture but for others you can use the 3 layer architecture.
Cisco Core Switching : Go with Cisco 6807 or Cisco catalyst 9400 as a core in modular space or if you required fixed model then CiscoCatalyst 9500 or Cisco Catalyst 9300 If you have the campus having high user count which means you have high traffic you will have to take Cisco 6807 modular switch in the core. Cisco catalyst 9400 is s modular switch which comes with two options Cisco 9407 and Cisco 9410. You can also use Cisco 3850 fiber switch in the core for very small campus where the use count is low.
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| Fig 1.1- Cisco 3 tier and collapsed Core Designs |
Aruba Core Switching: Well for Aruba, you can have two different models. You can select, Aruba 8700, Aruba 8400 series switch or you can go with the Aruba 8320 as a core switching in your network. The other option is to use Aruba 5400R series in the core networking.
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| Fig 1.1- Aruba 2 tier architecture |
Conclusion : I am a big fan of Cisco and with the market and the performance i recommend Cisco as a Core switching devices in a traditional switching architecture. I would recommend if you want to design a Campus, you can contact us we can guide you with the full design and the configuration on the charges basis.
Cisco Access Switching: There are lot of options in access layer for a campus. With Cisco you can have the modular as well as the fixed models available. Cisco modular will give you the lot of users connect to a single switch with so many ports. You can have Cisco catalyst 9400 switch in a large campus. Cisco catalyst 9400 has Cisco 9410 and Cisco 9407 switches.
- Cisco 9410 : If we populate full, it will give you 8 slots and every slot have 48 ports and 2 slots are used for SUP engines. It will give 384 ports for users.
- Cisco 9407 : If we populate full, it will give you 5 slots and every slot have 48 ports and similarly 2 slots are used for SUP engines. It will give you 240 ports for users.
Secondly, if you have less users in the access the go with the fixed models like Cisco Catalyst 9300, Cisco 3850 Cisco Catalyst 9200 and Cisco 2960X/XR models based on the features and capabilities required. These switches are come up with the 24 or 48 ports with 1/10 Gb uplink ports as well. There are some models by which you get the POE/POE+ or even UPOE features to make your POE enabled devices works which high power. Redundancy with switches by stacking or with power you are getting many benefits which low downtime.
Aruba Access Switching: Aruba has many models to use in the access layer. Aruba have the models like Aruba 3810, Aruba 2930M, Aruba 2930F, Aruba 2920, Aruba 2540 and Aruba 2530 are the switching you can use in the access layer. Aruba have the wide range of the access switching layer and so as the models here. If you required less features or you have low user counts in the access you can also have the other models from Aruba Switching gears and these models are Aruba 1950, Aruba 1920S, Aruba 1850, Aruba 1820, Aruba 1620, Aruba 1420 and Aruba 1405. You can check the datasheet on the basis of the campus needs and capability required.
Conclusion: I suggest to evaluate the both Cisco and Aruba options. Cisco gives you the variety of the features which may be Aruba has some short comes but both vendors are extremely good in the campus access layer switching as per the traditional architecture.
Note: You can send us your requirement and our expert will guide you with the best of the best for your core and the access layer devices.
Next Generation Switching: Way of doing the design in the LAN network
Now if you are moving with the pace of the market and wants to evaluate the next generation LAN networks which mainly talks about the network with segmentation between the Data, voice, video, IOT kind of networks then you can go with this solution of creating the fabric in the LAN I guess you already knew so many players are coming to build the LAN network full automated with network visibility and secure segmentation. Players like Cisco, Aerohive, Arista, HP is working in it. But here in this article I will only discuss the Cisco SD-Access LAN environment as it is one of the most successful architecture in the market.
Cisco SD-Access : As we wrote so many articles on the Cisco SD-Access The design is somewhat similar to make the fabric which has Core and Access. The switches which we used in the core and access while designing the traditional Campus network can also use to create the fabric.
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| Fig 1.3- Cisco SD-Access Design |
Cisco Core Switching : Go with Cisco 6807 or Cisco catalyst 9400 as a core in modular space with the Cisco SD-Access capabilities with the DNA advantage licensing you can get the same required SD-Access capabilities with the fixed model like Cisco Catalyst 9500 or Cisco Catalyst 9300 If you have the campus having high user count which means you have high traffic you will have to take Cisco 6807 modular switch in the core. Cisco catalyst 9400 is s modular switch which comes with two options Cisco 9407 and Cisco 9410. You can also use Cisco 3850 fiber switch in the core for very small campus where the use count is low.
Cisco Access Switching: Same as the traditional campus, you can have various options in access layer for a campus. With Cisco you can have the modular as well as the fixed models available. Cisco modular will give you the lot of users connect to a single switch with so many ports. You can have Cisco catalyst 9400 switch in a large campus. Cisco catalyst 9400 has Cisco 9410 and Cisco 9407 switches.
- Cisco 9410 : If we populate full, it will give you 8 slots and every slot have 48 ports and 2 slots are used for SUP engines. It will give 384 ports for users.
- Cisco 9407 : If we populate full, it will give you 5 slots and every slot have 48 ports and similarly 2 slots are used for SUP engines. It will give you 240 ports for users.
Cisco Catalyst 9000 series can deploy both in a traditional or Next Generation Networks. Just you need to use the DNA advantage or Essential licenses to make them work with the Overlay VXLAN networks.
Secondly, if you have less users in the access the go with the fixed models like Cisco Catalyst 9300 Cisco 3850, Cisco Catalyst 9200 models based on the features and capabilities required. These switches are come up with the 24 or 48 ports with 1/10 Gb uplink ports as well. There are some models by which you get the POE/POE+ or even UPOE features to make your POE enabled devices works which high power. Redundancy with switches by stacking or with power you are getting many benefits which low downtime. Here just keep in mind you need DNA advantage or Essential licenses to create fabric in the network.
Conclusion: For making the next generation switching network, i will suggest you to go with the Cisco SD-Access design.
We will guide you if you want any help or if you want is to design your network, send us your requirement and we will design your network but with the charges J
