SWICTH interconnecting

[steef]

-i have a 6500 cisco switch in the main server room(4 th floor).
-i have another 6500 cisco switch in the same building(third floor) connecting to the one above thru fiber optic cable.
in the first floor i have around 25 users connected thru (fiber & cat6) cables to the switch in the third floor.
-we are using around 55 vlans
-the cisco switch in the server room is the root bridge.
case:
in case of total black out of the swicth in the third floor the users in the first floor will be disconnected.
solution required:
what is the best solution to solve this case?
notes:(installing a new swicth,cables,configuration)

[Jerome Henry]

Hi,

Of course an easy way out is to install redonduncy, adding a switch in the first floor, cabling it (fx) to the main 4th floor swithc, and to poison this route so that your older configuration will remain active up to the time the 3rd floor switch is unvalid...

J

[Gonzo Granello]

there is no standart answer for that and most companies charge for consulting now.... Anyway, if you want to go the same way you're on right now, the logical choice is toconnect floor 3 back to one and keep using stp. My opinion about stp however is 1st not to use it unless you really need to and 2nd stp is per definition not a redundancy protocol. Having said that (and considering the performance of the 6500's) i would go with a solution that gives you gateway redundancy, like VRRP or XRRP on the HP 5300 series and save the money from your "smartnet" contract to make your network smarter...... ;-)

Anyway, contact me direct if you need some ideas.

[Stuart Teo]

Hi Steef,

Let me make sure I got you right.

(1) You have a cisco6500 in lvl4 aka server rm. This is the root bridge.

(2) You have a cisco6500 in lvl3

Given thiis situation. I'd install a switch in lvl1. Run a multimode to the cisco6500 in lvl3 and another multimode to the cisco6500 in lvl4. Migrate all users in lvl1 to the new switch in lvl1.

Lower the priorty value of the cisco6500 in lvl4 to say 16384. Set the rest of the switches to say 32768. Spanning tree will take care of the rest. Use trunks if lvl to lvl bandwidth becomes an issue.