White Paper
Cisco Live San Francisco 2014 Core Backbone
Network
Routing, Switching, and Services in the Cisco® Live Network: Design and topology
has evolved through various events. This year the core and the main distribution
networks were upgraded to the Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches running QuadSup Single Sign-On (SSO) Virtual Switching System (VSS).
The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switch has continued to show its versatility and stability by being the backbone
switch of choice for Cisco Live Networks.
Network Backbone at Previous Events
The complete Cisco Live Network showcased Cisco data center, service provider, security and enterprise product
portfolios working together to form a complete network.
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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Cisco Live 2014 San Francisco Topology
The main show floor core and main distribution switch ran the Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switche in quad-sup
VSS SSO mode to provide a very resilient network. The entire wireless data was switched through the Cisco
Catalyst 6500 and 6800 distribution network and brought to a centralized Cisco Catalyst 6800 distribution switch
where the controllers were connected. The wireless LAN controllers (WLCs) were dual-homed in the quad-sup
VSS system
6800 VSS Quad-Sup SSO
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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The Cisco Catalyst 6500 and 6800 backbone network remained up during the entire Cisco Live Event. It was
running the following code
s2t54-adventerprisek9-mz.SPA.151-2.SY1.bin
The main distribution switch, which has the WLCs and the show floor network, were connected over four
40-Gigabit Ethernet links to the core switch to form a 160-Gbps backbone.
40 Gigabit Ethernet with a 160-Gigabit Ethernet Backbone
Multichassis Cisco EtherChannel between core and main distribution VSS
WS-X6904-40G-2T/XL in the network
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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The Cisco Catalyst 6500 and 6800 Series Switches were selected because of their scalability, stability, and rich
Cisco IOS® Feature-set.
The following features were turned on in the backbone network:
●
Cisco Catalyst 6800 VSS Quad-Sup SSO and Multichassis Cisco EtherChannel
(10/40 Gigabit Ethernet links)
◦ To provide resiliency to the core and main distribution networks
●
Routing protocols: Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) for IPv4 and IPv6
◦ For routing and Internet
●
Bidirectional (BFD) for BGP on a switch virtual interface (SVI) on the Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL Switch
(750 ms x 3)
◦ For fast convergence and (LOS) detection in suboptimal physical link situations
●
Network Management: Simple Network Management Protocol Version 3 (SNMPv3), Authentication,
Authorization, and Accounting (AAA), Secure Shell Version 2 (SSHv2), control plane policing, syslog, and
so forth.
◦ To manage, troubleshoot, and control access to the switches during the event
●
Flexible Cisco NetFlow on Supervisor for IPv4 and IPv6 traffic
◦ For security and visibility information
●
Multicast
◦ For video streaming
●
IPv6 Internet
◦ For IPv6 capable devices and websites
This shows the exact inventory of the Cisco Catalyst 6800 and 6500 backbone.
Catalyst 6800 Equipment Inventory - Core
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Catalyst 6500 and 6800 Equipment Inventory - Distribution
Internet Services Architecture
Multiple 10G Links were used as the main Internet connectivity. Only default routes were inherited for IPv4 and
IPv6 Internet connectivity from the WAN colocation routers.
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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BGP Routes on Show Floor Core Switch
There were 25 terabits of data switched to the Internet through the backbone core during the Cisco Live 2014
San Francisco event. This is ignoring the large number of video surveillance, video streaming and breakout
session recording data, which was locally switched through the distribution, core, and onsite data center and
storage network.
Internet Statistics
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Wi-Fi Client Statistics
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Printed in USA
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
C11-732492-00
11/14
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