GBE2 switch configuration attached to single cisco 6509

[Richard_413]

I am attempting to configure a blade chasis that has 2 GBE2 swithces similar to the straight through configuration depicted in the "Deploying the proliant BL-pClass GBE2 Interconnect Switch into a Cisco based Network" page 22. The only difference is we only have one Cisco switch.

What I have done so far is create 2 channels on the cisco switch with 3 ports each. These plug into ports 19,20,21 on the GBE2's. Those ports are configured as tagged, 100 full.

Basically both switches are configured identically. I also disabled ports 17 and 18 on both switches. Ports 1,2,5,7,9,11,13,15 belong to the same vlan, as do the trunked ports.

On testing, the configuration, I started with one switch and confirmed connectivity and trunking by disconnected different combinations of the uplink ports. All this seemed to work fine.

When I brought up the second switch problems arose where other subnets could ping the servers in the blade enclosure, but servers on the same subnet could not.

the servers have nic1(switch a) and nic3 (switch b) teamed. I have a feeling that the problem is one or some or all of the following...

1. Trunk ports need to be attached to seperate Cisco switchs as depicted in the document. ( I dont think this is it)

2. STP needs to be disabled on both GBE2's
(this may be true but not sure if this is the problem)

3. Additional software is needed to make this work. I.E. Proliant Essentials Intellignet Networking Pack. ( I think this is the main issue)

Obviously, my intention is to Team nic1 and nic3 for fault tolerance in the event that a blade on the cisco goes out or a GBE2 goes out or needs maintenance, there is no downtime.

So what I am looking for is confirmation or insight into this scenario.

Thanks for the help

[Ray Lee_2]

Hello,

Did you get an answer to this posting? I have similar questions.

Thanks,

[Anders_35]

This sound mysterious to me, too.
I would sniff traffic off both GBE2s to see where your packets are going.
What kind of teaming are you using? Fault-tolerance, or load balancing?

When there are problems with one subnet, and not another, I usually find it's a VLAN or IP problem. Have you checked the VLAN-configuration for the second trunk/channel on the Cisco? But if you are using load balancing in the teaming, then a switch might choke on seeing the same MAC on different ports. How does the Cisco handle that?

As for your point #2:
"STP needs to be disabled on both GBE2's"


I wouldn't do this if I were you. In fact, I'd keep the crosslink as well.
The reason is because teaming might actually failover to a faulty link.
Say your server has the nic on GBE2 A active, and all is well. The active nic will send a heartbeat across the network, to the stand-by nic on GBE2 B.
Failover occurs if the heartbeat doesn't arrive.
Unfortunately, this means that if the link between your Cisco and GBE2 B fails (ie the passive/stand by link), failover will still occur. Now your server is trying to communicate through GBE2 B, which is off-line, and your healthy link on GBE2 A is unused.

Keeping the crosslink open, and running STP, will avoid this problem.