Gbe switch confilct with cisco switch

[Rene Mansveld]

I've got a problem with the gbe switches wich belong to the blade servers in combination with cisco swichtes.
Although they seem to talk the same protocol they're incompatible.

Does anyone have the same experience

[Jayachandran_2]

did u get this resolved? I am facin g the same issue we see lots of INDiscards on the uplink ports of the GBE-2 and Hp blames Cisco and vice versa..

[Connery]

Rene,
It depends on which protocol/s you are referring to.

The GbE (not the GbE2) only supports 802.1D Spanning Tree (mono spanning tree). It does not support Cisco's PVST or PVST+ spanning tree protocol. You can use a config that will make them work together without causing a communication problem, though.

The GbE only supports 802.1q tagging for VLAN and priority. It does not support the proprietary ISL (Interswitch link) VLAN tagging that Cisco uses on some switches. Almost all Cisco switches support 802.1q. This means you can configure the two to work together.

The GbE switches only support static 802.3ad port trunking (e.g. channeling). It does not support LACP (802.3ad automatic trunking) and it does not support Cisco's proprietary PAgP (Port Aggregation Protocol) for automatic port channeling. The GbE and Cisco will work for port trunking if they both have port trunking/channeling manually enabled for the ports that are directly connected.

As you can see, there are lots of areas where Cisco has proprietary protocols. Many situation can be worked around, however, I'll need specific information in order to help you.

Best regards,
-sean