Using 6120XG as a switch layer for VC Flex10 in the same chassis...

[chuckk281]

Louie had an interesting configuration:

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We have a requirement to use 2 x 6120XG in a c7000 chassis as switches for VC Flex10 in the same chassis.

So the 6120 switches will be used purely to allow VC Flex10 to attach to them externally (i.e. DAC cables from VC to 6120) and then for P4300s to attach to the 6120s as well through 10Gb DACs (P4300 has 10Gb NIC upgrade).

No servers will be attached internally to the 6120s i.e. they will be only drawing power (and management) from the chassis.

Is this supported?   Any possible issues in doing this?

The main driver for this design is that the customer is a Telco running DC power (the c7000 is a DC enclosure) and this is the easiest way for us to get switches into the environment without the much larger expense of adding external 10Gb DC powered switches just to get the P4300s attached (also any external switches would have to be Cisco).

The original configuration had the P4300s attached directly to VC Flex10 (I know this is not supported) – we are trying to remedy the situation by adding the 6120s as the switch layer between VC and the P4300s.

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From Alex:

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From Virtual Connect  perspective this is a supported configuration. I don’t see any issues with using c-Class Procurve switcesh as the interconnect between Flex-10 and P4300 storage array.

The restriction about not supporting VC Flex-10 directly attached to the P4000 series storage only applies if you have multi-node storage array. VC won’t be able to switch traffic between the nodes. You can only attach directly if it is a single node array.

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Hope this helps. Any other questions?