about my 6509

mattsthe2

Hi Group,

So i have some questions about my 6509.

I'm trying to understand the throughput i have and some basic questions regarding the components of this switch:

Heres what i have:

VS-S720-10G - Sup720 x2 (active/standby)
WS-X6148-GE-TX x3
WS-X6724-SFP


Questions:

1) So i just found out that the 61xx series line cards are not fabric enabled and ultize the 32Gb Shared bus.
a) what is the difference between the 720Gb Fabic vs a shared bus?
b) with a single 6148 line card populated with all 48 ports running 1gig on each port will i get a total of 48Gbs through that card or only 32Gb(shared bus)?
/rant I'm kind upset that im not accessing the 720 fabric, what would be the point of selling line cards that don't grrrrr /rant
c) I heard that even with the 67xx series line cards that there are throughput limits i think like 30Gbs or 40Gbs of the actual 720Gbs available.

2) So with my available configuration and line cards, we have servers and VM servers connecting to the 6509. Would it be best for me to move our VM-Ware server to the WS-X6724-SFP? I'd have to buy copper SFP's, would i get more throughput?

Thanks,

kalebksp

I don't know a lot about the 6500s but this article might help you: Notes on Cisco Catalyst 6500 architecture | My Etherealmind

tiersten

mattsthe2 wrote: »

what is the difference between the 720Gb Fabic vs a shared bus?

Everything connected to the shared data bus shares the 32Gbps that the bus can handle. The fabric on a 6500 with a Sup720 however can offer up to 40Gbps per slot uncontended if the card that is put into it has the correct fabric connections.

mattsthe2 wrote: »

b) with a single 6148 line card populated with all 48 ports running 1gig on each port will i get a total of 48Gbs through that card or only 32Gb(shared bus)?

You'd have a theoretical maximum of 32Gbps half duplex assuming nobody else is using the bus. The bus is used for everything though so you're not going to get 32Gbps throughput out of it. I'm not sure what the ASICs on the 6148 can do as well.

mattsthe2 wrote: »

/rant I'm kind upset that im not accessing the 720 fabric, what would be the point of selling line cards that don't grrrrr /rant

If you don't have Sup720 in it then you don't have a 720Gbps fabric :P

The non fabric line cards are generally cheaper. You may not need that much throughput. Your supervisor card may not support the fabric connections or it may only support an older version.

mattsthe2 wrote: »

c) I heard that even with the 67xx series line cards that there are throughput limits i think like 30Gbs or 40Gbs of the actual 720Gbs available.

Each slot can have at most 2 fabric connections of 20Gbps each + the shared bus.

Generally you're not going to be maxing out every single port on your line cards so the oversubscription isn't a big deal. If it does matter for you then you have to account for this in your original design.

mattsthe2 wrote: »

2) So with my available configuration and line cards, we have servers and VM servers connecting to the 6509. Would it be best for me to move our VM-Ware server to the WS-X6724-SFP? I'd have to buy copper SFP's, would i get more throughput?

No idea. It depends on what your configuration is. Just be aware that if you're mixing fabric line cards and shared bus line cards that it'll drop down to the shared bus if you go between them.

We've got 6500s here. They're reliable and perform well but you need to configure them properly in the first place. Cisco have a wide range of Sups and line cards so you need to do a lot of research first. EtherChannel makes everything more complicated as well since some of the ASICs in the line cards have issues with this and certain configurations.

mattsthe2

thanks for your help.