Cisco Catalyst 3560-X Series, Software Configuration Manual

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Catalyst 3750-X and 3560-X Switch Software Configuration Guide
OL-25303-03
Chapter 1 Overview
Network Configuration Examples
You can use the switches and switch stacks to create the following:
•
Cost-effective wiring closet ( Figure 1-1 )—A cost-effective way to connect many users to the wiring
closet is to have a switch stack of up to nine Catalyst 3750-X switches. To preserve switch
connectivity if one switch in the stack fails, connect the switches as recommended in the hardware
installation guide, and enable either cross-stack EtherChannel or cross-stack UplinkFast.
You can have redundant uplink connections, using SFP modules in the switch stack to a Gigabit
backbone switch, such as a Catalyst 4500, Catalyst 3750-X, Catalyst 3750-E, or Catalyst
3560E-12D switch. You can also create backup paths by using Gigabit or EtherChannel links. If one
of the redundant connections fails, the other can serve as a backup path. If the Gigabit switch is
cluster-capable, you can configure it and the switch stack as a switch cluster to manage them through
a single IP address. The Gigabit switch can be connected to a Gigabit server through a 1000BASE-T
connection.
Table 1-2 Providing Network Services
Network Demands Suggested Design Methods
Efficient bandwidth usage for
multimedia applications and
guaranteed bandwidth for critical
applications • Use IGMP snooping to efficiently forward multimedia and multicast traffic.
•
Use other QoS mechanisms such as packet classification, marking, scheduling,
and congestion avoidance to classify traffic with the appropriate priority level,
thereby providing maximum flexibility and support for mission-critical, unicast,
and multicast, and multimedia applications.
•
Use optional IP multicast routing to design networks better suited for multicast
traffic.
•
Use MVR to continuously send multicast streams in a multicast VLAN but to
isolate the streams from subscriber VLANs for bandwidth and security reasons.
High demand on network redundancy
and availability to provide
always on
mission-critical applications
•
Use switch stacks, where all stack members are eligible active switches in case of
active switch failure. All stack members have synchronized copies of the saved
and running configuration files of the switch stack.
• Use cross-stack EtherChannels for providing redundant links across the switch
stack.
•
Use Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) for cluster command switch and router
redundancy.
• Use VLAN trunks, cross-stack UplinkFast, and BackboneFast for traffic-load
balancing on the uplink ports so that the uplink port with a lower relative port cost
is selected to carry the VLAN traffic.
An evolving demand for IP telephony
•
Use QoS to prioritize applications such as IP telephony during congestion and to
help control both delay and jitter within the network.
• Use switches that support at least two queues per port to prioritize voice and data
traffic as either high- or low-priority, based on IEEE 802.1p/Q. The switch
supports at least four queues per port.
•
Use voice VLAN IDs (VVIDs) to provide separate VLANs for voice traffic.
A growing demand for using existing
infrastructure to transport data and
voice from a home or office to the
Internet or an intranet at higher
speeds Use the Catalyst Long-Reach Ethernet (LRE) switches to provide up to 15 Mb of IP
connectivity over existing infrastructure, such as existing telephone lines.
Note LRE is the technology used in the Catalyst 2950 LRE switch. See the
documentation sets specific to this switch for LRE information.