Resilient network without broadcast storms

[PhilipHGray]

Hello all,

I'm trying to set up a resilient network using ProCurve 2510-24 and 2810-24G switches and I could do with a bit of clarification on some of the finer points. I've attached a diagram showing what I'm hoping to set up but I've got a few questions about the details.

1. Initially, until I turned spanning tree on, I had a couple of broadcast storms on this setup. Is using spanning tree the only / best option for avoiding this?

2. I'm using the 2 gigabit ports on the 2510-24 as the uplinks to the 2810-24G switches. Should I be using port trunking on these 2 ports to configure them as a single link or does the fact that they're going to 2 different switches make this irrelevant / unadvisable?

3. I'm using BACS3 on the servers to manage the network cards and they're configured as Smart Load Balancing teams. Will this cause any issues when using spanning tree? Should I look at an alternative type of teaming e.g. generic trunking?

4. The diagram only shows one but I've actually got 4 of the 2510-24 switches. Should I consider stacking them and the 2 2810-24Gs? Would this cause any problems / deliver any benefits?

Many thanks in advance for any assistance.

Phil.

[Bruce Campbell_3]

Q1:
Yes, spanning tree is the right solution
for layer 2 redundancy. I'd recommend linking
the two 2810's together, (and ensuring the same
vlans are on all ports between the 2810's
and all 2510's, if you are using multiple
vlans and 802.1q.) This should keep the
5 downlinks on the same 2810 in a blocked
state, and make debugging easier. (as it
is, I suspect random links will block,
and if 4 of your 5 2510's go down,
nothing will block)

Q4:
Stacking won't hurt, and is only useful
for management of the switches. It doesn't
provide any bandwidth or redundancy benefit.

[PhilipHGray]

Hi Bruce, thanks for getting back to me on this.

I'm not using VLANS (yet) on these switches but I thought your suggestion about linking the 2810s was interesting - you mean directly patch the 2 together? Can you shed a bit more light on that?

Also any thouhgts about port trunking the gigabit ports on the 2510s? Is this academic because they're going to 2 different physical switches?

Thanks again.