SD-Access vs Compact-Switches or 3rd Party

[Daniel Schmidt]

Hello

I have a customer, who is interested at SD-Access, but the customer had a fiber-to-desk-cabeling and had compact-Switches from a 3rd party vendor.

Is there any SD-Access-ready solution  to integrate or replace those compact switches ?

Greetings,

Daniel

[Shawn Wargo · Accepted solution]

Hi Daniel.

Good question. Short answer: No.

For Cisco compact switches, we do have the concept of "fabric extension" (sometimes called "subtended") automation.

Compact switches are not capable of direct participation in the Cisco SD-Access fabric (as Fabric Edge nodes), but the Cisco DNA Center can automate the connections (Layer 2) between compact-switches and the Fabric Edge nodes. There is also a second option to use the PNP/ZTD application of DNA Center, to push a full configuration to the compact-switches.

For more information on SD-Access support for compact switches, refer to the following link: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/solutions/collateral/enterprise-networks/software-defined-access/solution-overview-c22…

However, we do not currently support "fabric extension" automation for 3rd party compact switches. Similarly, the DNA Center PNP/ZTD application does not currently support 3rd party devices. We are investigating ZTD support for 3rd party devices, but nothing is committed. 

[Daniel Schmidt]

Hello Shawn,

Thanks for the Information.

Can you give some more Information abourt the concept of "fabric extension" and limits (VLANs) usw. .

Daniel

[Shawn Wargo]

In the upcoming release of DNA Center (1.1) we will support 3 types of Fabric Extension nodes:

1. Catalyst 3560 CX Series Switches

2. Cisco Digital Building Switches

3. Industrial Ethernet Switches (NEW)

With the initial (1.1) release, we will only support a single VLAN per Extension node.

* We will support mulitple VLANs in a later release.

You can read more about the overall SD-Access 1.0 solution here:

Software-Defined Access 1.0 Solution White Paper - Cisco

[ocandara]

Hi Shawn, 

Is this still true?

How we can connect a 3rd party switch to SDA fabric?

Is there any design doc about it? 

it will be just a L2 extension? a trunk link connected to an edge sw (vlans)? what about the config and policy?

Thanks in advance!

[AdamGordon]

good question. bot no