Black Diamond

[Emeds]

My company will be expanding our network over the holidays. Currently we have 2 Summit 24s and they have been pretty good, we lost a port last year but it was our fault.
We are looking at adding a Black Diamond and creating a "core" from what currently lives as two peer switches.
We aren't going to be doing anything fancy. Of the users here who have deployed this switch what has your experience been in the "gotcha" area. I have done a bit of research and although the Cat 6509 is the most common we really can't justify the additional cost.

 

[rn4it]

If you go with the BD, then make sure you get a redundant MSM's (mgmt blades). I would also suggest that you get a redundant blade of each type. Even though we haven't had many blade failures, if one goes and you only have one it could really inconveinient to wait for the replacement. We've been using BD6808's on our core for 5yrs, over the last couple years we've had next to no problems.

 

[nweqjim]

Emeds
The 6808 Black Diamond is a solid choice for a chassis/blade solution. I am uncertain if you will be populating with 10/100 cards or Gig or a mixture.
I work for a company that sells refurbished Extreme so my advice would be regardless of where you are getting the gear, get a spare 10/100 blade as a standby. Its cheap insurance in my book. Not to give you the whole sales pitch thing but it really does make life easier if you lose a blade. Ofr course having a reduntant power supply will be a good idea.