Trunking between C7000 and 5412zl

[Ed Valasek]

Hello all,

I am looking for a little guidance on trunking ports between a C7000 Blade center with 6 Full Height BL480c Blades, 4 GbE2c switches in slots 1, 2, 3, 4, and a 5412zl. This is a VMware environment by the way.... ESX 3.5 with VCenter etc... The whole package.

We have the extra NICs in each Blade.

Basically we now have 1 connection per GbE2c into the 5412zl. I read a doc on multipathing to two Cisco 6509s but was wondering if anyone could provide some insight on trunking with one core which is a 5412zl(not two Ciscos as the document refers to for the cisco model) and provide some help with the GbE2c switches.

We have multiple VLANs so 802.1q trunks need to be used.

Basically right now everything in the GbE2c switches is set to VLAN 1 yet the servers are on VLAN 2 and it seemsto be passing the VLAN somehow.... If I change the ports on the GbE2c switch to VLAN2 it stops working....

Any guides anyone knows of for my scenario? I was shocked that HP would put out a doc on the cisco environment but not one for an HP networking environment.....

Thanks!

Ed

[Lmm_1]

Ed, are you trying to pass multiple VLANs to same NIC? if so, you need to configure VLAN tagging on the downlink por of the GBe2c first, you need to enable tagging on the port first, then create an enable the VLANS, then add the port to each VLAN that you need to pass across:

cfg/port x
tag/e

cfg/l2/vlan y
en
add x

on the uplink ports, just add them to the same VLAN´s, on the procurve side, you need to create the vlans and then add the ports tagged

config term
vlan y
tagged x

that should be enough to have multiple vlans working on this configuration, if you have any question let me know.

[Ed Valasek]

Lmm,

Yes, you are correct I am trying to pass all my VLANS to the Blade Center. I will need to have different servers tagged to different VLANs through VMware.

Thanks for the response.... Just so I am clear on this. Trunking between the GbE2c switches in the Blade Center is done across switches using ports 17 & 18, correct? Just thought I would see....

I also have Slots 3 & 4 with GbE2c switches as well so I take it those will need to be trunked to each other as well? Do you know if it is basically 1 & 2 trunk to each other and 3 & 4 or do / can the switches be trunked to each other across slots? I don't think they can from what I read, but figured I would ask. This is kinda new territory for me. I have worked with primarily Cisco and HP full blown switches and not with devices / ports I cannot physically see.... I am also trying to learn the setups for these GbE2c switches.... Trying to take in as much as I can to wrap my head around it....

Thanks again! I really appreciate it. I will give your suggestions a shot.

Ed

[Lmm_1]

Ed, you are correct, internal x-connects are between adjacent bays only (1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8), by default port 17 and 18 are on Trunk1 (GbE2c Trunk = Cisco Etherchannel) but it needs to be enabled.