Opinions / Suggestions on Cisco Network Refresh Design

We are in the midst of designing a network refresh to replace our aged pair of 6509 switches that support all functions, including the aggregation of older access switches. The following new design has been recommended by both our reseller and Cisco.

 

I'd like opinions and suggestions to the new design. So it is out there upfront, we've vetted other manufacturers but elected to stay with Cisco because we already have the skill set in-house, they have fantastic support (although you pay for it), and a number of other reasons. That said, we will be overlaying the core with VMware's NSX (software defined networking). The drive for a refresh is based on NSX (microsegmentation), VoIP, access layer POE, soon to be end of life Cisco products, and additional speed.

 

Requirements:
* 40 gb ports to our (10) VMware ESXi servers, (3) to our VMware VDI servers, and (1) to our backup server
* Most other physical servers services will be moved to vm's and any remaining will become 10g connections
* The core needs to be fast

 

The reseller and Cisco are recommending the following:
* (2) Nexus 93180LC and (2) 2248TP-E FEX’ for all Datacenter connections
* (2) Catalyst 9500 as the Core/Distribution switches
* IDF switches will be Catalyst 9300’s, stacked, connected back to the CAT9500

 

Notes:
* Non-datacenter services (i.e., Internet Firewall) terminate into the CAT9500
* VLANs will be defined on the CAT9500
* DHCP will be re-directed to DHCP server
* We have approximately (100) 1gb connections into a pair of 6509's currently, a good chunk are to the ESXi servers, and most of these are etherchanneled and/or are redundant connections.

 

Routing occurs at 3 areas:
* Datacenter. All subnets for the datacenter and all DC traffic is routed by the 9300’s.
* Core/Access/Edge. All subnets serving the access layer are routed by the 9500’s. The 9500’s also become the default way out of the network
* WAN. Use the existing ISR router
* Route distribution is handled by EIGRP processes running on the 9300+9500+ISR, so all internal routes are known. The ISR becomes the gateway of last resort.

 

The thought about using FEX's was that they will present themselves as essentially a line card out of the 93180LC and will be a staging place as we slowly move our traditional 1gb servers over to 10gb using breakout cables on the 93180. Once they have been migrated over, the FEX' can be used for server management (iLo, Drac, heartbeat, etc).

 

Thoughts?

 

Thank you!