Implementation of Distributed Trunking

roelensjeffrey — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 09:57:55 GMT

Hello,

One of our clients has asked to consider the implementation of distributed trunking in his environment, but we are not sure whether this is applicable (best solution) for their network.

The current situation is this:

2 physical sites/locations.
2 central switches (HP ProCurve 5406zl) that are located each on another site/location and are connected with an aggregated link (« trunk ») of 6 Gbps .
18 switches for device connection (HP ProCurve 4202vl, 8000M en 4000M) that are connected with the backbone switches with redundant links (« trunks » ProCurve- switches) and/or redundant paths STP (802.1D; no RTSP or MSTP)
20 VLANs

We have to implement a vSphere Essentials plus kit environment with VSA (3 servers with local storage) which is devided over 2 locations/sites. In addition, there will be also a vSphere Essentials kit environment without VSA (2 servers with local storage) en 1 stand-alone ESXi that serves.

The client would like to have the 2 central switches (HP ProCurve 5406zl) to be configured as DTS (Distributed Trunk Switches), or is considering it.

Some questions arise:

Is this recommended for their network / central switches?
Is this recommended for 2 central switches on different sites/locations?
Are there any pitfalls/caveats?
Is vSphere capable to handle this HP distributed trunking?
Are there any good white papers about setting up distributed trunking on 2 sites/locations?

Please advise.

Thanks in advance.

Re: Implementation of Distributed Trunking

krillean — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 09:41:29 GMT

There used to be a White Paper at this link:

http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=4AA3-4841ENW

But HP has removed it. You can read about Distributed Trunking and how to set it up in the installation guide for your switch.

What I don't understand is what you are trying to achieve with distributed trunking across 2 sites using just 1 switch on each side? It should be 2 switches on each side using distributed trunking. Its the same as if you would stack 2 switches, Distributed Trunking is just a "poor mans" stacking. If I where You I would use stacked switches instead, like 2920 or 3800 switches, because distributed Trunking isn't bug free. We have been using it for 1 year now and I have reported 2 major bugs during that time.

Best Regards // Kristian

topic Re: Implementation of Distributed Trunking in Switches, Hubs, and Modems

Implementation of Distributed Trunking

Re: Implementation of Distributed Trunking