A while back, my company outsourced our Data Center to a third party hosting firm. For the most part, it has worked out well, and from a business point of view, it made lots of sense. From a personal point of view, however….well, it did hurt a bit. I mean, if you are a Sr. Network Engineer, without a Data Center, are you really still a Sr. Network Engineer?

Oh well, it is what it is. After the move, our Data Center was rather empty, except for our core 6509 switch. It was still in place, feeding a bunch of access layer switches and a few remaining servers. Until last night that is. My coworker and I had the sad duty of powering down the switch, removing it from the rack, and replacing it with two Cisco 3650-48 switches. (If you know what the annual SmartNET maintenance is on a 6509 switch, then you know the ROI on replacing it with these 3650’s is a huge no-brainer!!)

Everything went very smoothly, the new switches are in place, and the 6509 is sitting on a cart waiting to be sold. I sure wish I could afford it…it would look GREAT in my lab at home. Of course, my electrical bill would be sky-high, not to mention trying to keep the room cooled.

Before…

And after…

But…to be very honest…I’m going to miss my 6509. There is nothing like a big chassis class switch to brighten one’s day. I know it did for me.