Recommended L2 switches for a new IXP

Mon Jan 12 20:11:10 UTC 2015

On Monday, January 12, 2015 05:54:38 PM Bill Woodcock wrote:

> We see a lot of IXPs being formed or upgrading with Cisco
> Nexus 3524 switches, which have 48 1G-10G SFP/SFP+
> physical ports, license-limited to 24 active,
> upgradeable to 48 active.
> 
> FWIW, 83% of IXPs have 48 or fewer participants, and 70%
> of IXPs have 24 or fewer participants.  And the failure
> rate of chassis-based switches is _way_ higher than that
> of stand-alone switches.  So we never recommend that an
> IXP buy a switch larger than necessary to accommodate 18
> months reasonably-projectable growth.

Would tend to agree with this approach, and the above.

Multi-rate (i.e., 1Gbps/10Gbps SFP/SFP+) standalone 1U 
switches are reasonable these days. The issue you'll 
probably run into with them is limited support for features 
you find being implemented by larger exchange points (VPLS, 
Sflow, e.t.c.), and quirks with the hardware that could 
impact things like Layer 2 or Layer 3 filtering (especially 
if they are using off-the-self silicon), e.t.c.

Test before you buy, in as far as you can anticipate your 
(growth) needs.

Mark.
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