which procurve switches support meshing?

[Bernhard Jethan]

hi there,

i've got a qustion regarding the meshing feature on procurve switches: which hp switches support the meshing technologie?

i found the "LAN Aggregation Through Switch Meshing" guide which describes the meshing algorithm and this paper tells me, that 8000m and 1600m support this feature.

what's about the L2 switches from a little bit newer generation like 2650 or 4100gl?

thank's a lot for you attention,

kind regards,

bernhard

[asdf_44]

The 5300 and 3400 line of switches also support meshing.

[Sergej Gurenko · Accepted solution]

You can use this document as a reference http://www.hp.com/rnd/pdfs/SWFeaturesMatrix27_May04.pdf
Look for "Switch Meshing" row. (Note: this is multipage doc)
You can always find new one on http://www.hp.com/rnd/software/index.htm

[Sietze Reitsma]

Hello,

Only the feature line of HP supports meshing. In this case the 5300 series and the new 3400cl series.

remember if you mix 5300/3400 with 8000M ten you need to use backward compatability mode.

Hopefully this helps.

Best Regards,

S.

[Les Ligetfalvy]

That meshing document is pretty old and you you can get more up to date info from the online docs for the specific switches that support meshing.

Keep in mind that while meshing is supported on some L3 switches, L3 routing cannot be combined with meshing. There is also a known issue with STP so RSTP should be deployed instead.

[Bjorn Tore Paulen]

Which known issue regards STP and Meshing?

[Les Ligetfalvy]

This is the way it was explained to me.

I have seen issues with HP meshing and STP (802.1d). The problem with STP is each and every time a user connects to a port, the port has to go thru the STP learning algorithm. During this period the mesh is notified of a topology change which can cause a MAC table to flush. For time sensitive applications I have seen this show up as a session disconnect because the mesh momentarily looses the MAC of one of the end node that is communicating.

RSTP (802.1w) is better equipped to handle this as each port by default does NOT go through the learning process.