Expert's answer

I have dealt with the 6500/7500 family of switches from Cisco, so I can give you some things to think about if you go the Cisco route (readers who are familiar with Juniper gear, please jump in!). Although you could call these routers, the environments I have used them in have been more from the switch standpoint (the line between a router and a switch can be very thin at times). I have used the 6500s in situations ranging from a small private college to a Fortune-500 shop where they served as the "closet" switches instead of stacking the normal 24/48 port switches. I have used 7500s in a Fortune 500 environment but since they are showing as End-of-Life on the Cisco website, I will concentrate my answers on the 6500 line.

There are several things to consider when sizing up these switches. The first would be the power supplies. Look at the power requirements for each of the blades you think you might ever possibly use. Make sure the power supplies you install will have sufficient resources to power not just what you use today but what your data center might need in the future. If you're in an area with occasional power outages, consider power supplies with dual power inputs, so you can have a UPS take over quickly (run one power cable from each power supply to a source of power protected by a long-running UPS. Run the other power cable from each power supply and connect it to house power, so the UPS is always up and ready to go).

You'll need to decide which supervisor engine to use. I have used everything from a Sup1A (which is no longer availabe) to the SUP720 and SUP32. Which supervisor engine you need to use will depend on what you will need your 6500 chassis to do and the cards that you will be using. While you can run redundant sup engines, I think you will find more versatility in running a second chassis instead of using a second slot in the same chassis.

Another thing you want to evaluate carefully is the amount of NVRAM and flash to install. Depending on the feature set you will be using, you may end up with more memory than you would think you would have. Price Cisco memory before making your final decision and compare that to what you will pay for it at the time of order. It is far cheaper as a general rule to buy what you need up front instead of adding it later. While you can buy non-Cisco memory and save some money, I havent found that to be worth it when you have problems and find out that Cisco wont provide support when they see non-Cisco memory installed.

When you look at the front of a supervisor engine, you will notice one to disk compact flash slots. I would encourage you to put in at least one CF card in the supervisor engine with sufficient capacity to hold at least two different IOS binaries as well as mulitple copies of the configuration file used that particular 6500 chassis. While you can fire up a TFTP or FTP server quickly enough to transfer this information, it is handy to have what you need locally.

I haven't worked much with the Juniper gear, so I won't be able to help you much in this area. I would suggest looking at what other companies are using where you are located. Also, see what type of technical talent pool is available. You should be able to hire someone without having to send them to training. Being able to support yourself is something to consider instead of having to be totally depending on a reseller or consultant who may not be available when you really need them. Juniper has offered programs in the past to help those with a Cisco background make the transition to working with Juniper as easy as possible.