So whats everyone using for switching and servers?

[kevin_kumpf]

We're using the Cisco Nexus 5010 (which I believe is EOL now) and the 5548.  Admittedly these may be pricey to get into but have been the most rock-solid, datacenter level switch we've used for storage.

I don't think you'll be disappointed in the R720 either, as that's currently our flagship server.  Quite beefy for only 2U of rack space.

[gsherart26]

We are using HP ProCurve 5400zl switches with 10Gb modules.  Servers are HP BL460c G8 blades (256G RAM, Dual 8 Core).  We boot off the Nimble so there is no local storage.

[jwolf81]

We're running four HP Gen8 BL460's on VMware with 192 GB RAM each at our primary datacenter. Switching there is through two 10GB HP Procurve 5820 series switches. Storage is Nimble CS240G and an old Drobo device for archive storage. We have around 50 VM's running in that environment (SQL and Citrix XenApp are the biggest hitters there).

We're replicating at the storage level, a SQL cluster, and through DFS down to our DR and development site which is a single HP Gen8 DL380 running VMware. I just have a small Procurve 2910 there at the moment with a Nimble CS240 as the only storage on site.

Both setups work extremely well, and my only gripe with the switches is the 5820's are really running the old 3com OS. The commands are different between the two Procurve products because of that which is frustrating. In a pinch, I also like to use the web interfaces on the switches as you can do most everyday tasks through there.

We're booting all our servers into VMware from onboard SD cards.

[J Benway]

We have Dell R7X0 server connected with 10GB twinax cables to cisco nexus 5548. I agree the twinax cables are VERY touchy. I think we've had to replace about 6 of them. We are using Qlogic CNA cards in the servers.

[jwagner137 · Accepted solution]

So we finally purchased and got in place our core. We ended up going with Dell Poweredge R720s and 4 Cisco 4900ms with a Nimble CS260 and CS220.

If I had to do it over I would go with a different switch vendor.

Otherwise all is running well and we are very happy with the setup and functionality so far.

[tmoore106]

For those that engage with a Nimble SE in the purchase process of an array, ask for that SE's feedback on switches specifically used for iSCSI. We see the good, the bad and the ugly.

[Jacob_Wilde]

We're running Nexus 5548's and all servers are Cisco UCS Blades, things seem to running well, we might consider going to Jumbo Frames as we're all 10GbE and we've seen some latency issues with SQL when doing backups and maintenance jobs that hit the databases hard. VMware seems to fly along, only thing I could wish for is an additional pair of 10GbE ports per controller so I could direct connect the Nimble Arrays to our two UCS domains via Appliance Ports.

[davecramp16]

I'll chime into this too.

DC1:

Cisco Nexus 5548 switches & Cisco UCS Blades.  We run jumbo frames for iSCSI and NFS traffic VLANs.

DC2

Cisco Nexus 5547 switches & HP C7000 / BL460C G6/7/8 blades.  HP FlexConnect 10gbit blade switches with Jumbo frames for NFS and iSCSI traffic.

[dhicks2]

HP DL360 Gen 9

HP 5406 10GBE

HP5612 10GBE

CS240

[marty_booth]

Cisco UCS B200 M4 Blades

Cisco C240s

Cisco 6296 FIs

Cisco Nexus 7k

2x CS300s (DR site)

2x CS500s (Prod site with All Flash Shelves)

We run the Nimble via appliance ports directly into the FIs, jumbo frames. I wish I hadn't done jumbo frames now, overcomplication of the environment for no real performance gain.

Melbourne VMUG UserCon 2015 - vSphere Storage Best Practices - YouTube

We replaced VMAXs and CLARiiONs...