6600 layer 3 redundancy

[ACK_IT]

I have 2 6600 switches that I'd like to configure so that it has both L2 & L3 redundancy. I.e. if 1 switch fails, the other switch will continue to route network and SAN traffic. Is VRRP the best/only option for this?

[Jeff Carrell · Accepted solution]

Basically yes, but in order to do both L2 & L3 you would want to configure MSTP and VRRP.

The "root bridge" definitions for MSTP and the "owner" definitions for VRRP should basically match each other for it all to work the best.

hth...Jeff

[John Gelten]

Since you specifically mention SAN traffic :
keep in mind that a failover of your L3 functionality is (obviously) significantly slower then L2 failovers.
Depending on the sensitivity to a 'network silence' during such a failover, all SAN-connected hosts might have died during the VRRP-failover, since it will feel to them as if you hot-plugged the harddrive.
I can't think of anything to prevent that from happening, so in some environments it is 'relatively useless' to have this VRRP-failover.

You might want to look into Distributed Trunking (havent used it on 6600s; I think they will support it) but there are a lot of features that are 'mutualy exclusive' with Distributed Trunking.

[ACK_IT]

Thank you all for the responses, I'll give both VRRP and distributed trunking a try