c7000 and GbE2c setup

[Robert Marek]

Matt, could you post your configuration?

Thanks,
Robert

[Matt Palmer_2]

Hi Robert,

please find config attached. please note that the exact config is also on my other switches, so you may need to move stuff about a bit.

please awards points if it helps.

regards

Matt

[Robert Marek]

Matt and Antonio,

I'm attaching simple drawing of my switches and how I think they could be connected. Please let me know what you think.

If I uplink to my core switch and have VLAN's IP gateways on it will traffic goes through core switch or will be going between blade switches since they using ports 17 and 18.

[The Brit]

Hi Robert,
I am not a network person, therefore most of the discussion above is beyond me, however I did note that your primary issue is that if you lose the module in IC bay1, then you lose everything.

I wondered if you have considered using Virtual Connect Manager. The Software runs Active/Standby on IC Modules in Bays 1 & 2, and will fail over if the active module fails. Also, all VC modules can be "stacked" to form a single VC domain, which allows you to create multiple redundant uplinks to the Network.

As you will have noticed, the NIC ports on your blades (embedded and Mezz ports) map alternately to odd and even IC Bays which is intended to allow the use of NIC "teaming" at the OS level to maintain connectivity.

Communication between blades can be kept inside the enclosure by defining a VC "vLan" which has no uplink ports assigned.

I appreciate you may have already considered this, or that it may not solve your problem (since I dont fully understand that part).

Dave.

[Robert Marek]

Thanks Dave, I wasn't aware of this...can you explain where it is and how to use it?

[Robert Marek]

Dave, this will not work. I have GbE2c switches only. What you proposing would require Virtual Connect Ethernet modules.

[Antonio Milanese]

Hello Robert,

looking at the your drawing now i have a better idea of what your problem:

a) you have created a full mesh topology between switches (cross connection+uplinks)
b) STP is running but with default on config: no MSTP and legacy IST (common spanning tree instance/domain)
b) cross links are active (p17,p18): that means you have a 2 ports LACP channel per bay horizontally
c) vertical uplinks are connected using a single port physical link

the problem lays in the fact that LACP groups have a better STP path cost (20000 vs 200000) so when STP builds the topology most of your "desired" vertical uplinks are in blocking state.

I suggest you:
a) use MSTP to build a partial mesh: how to link bays together depends on how you'll use downlink port (i.e. what kind of traffic they transport):
b) If you continue to use single port uplink you should lower STP path cost of those uplinks and lower xcross STP priority to build your desired topology
c) each uplink must be a trunk port i.e. carries each VLAN


an example:

suppose you use LOM:1a + MEZZ2:2b as active pNICs for the 2 ESX's vkernel iSCSI ports and
each P4500 cluster is connected with 1 bay left|right with ALB teaming (switch independent teaming);
the active P4500 cluster gateway nics are connected on bay1:bay2 VLAN 10 untagged ports
and LOM:1b, and other MEZZ1,MEZZ2 ports are carrying normal,non-storage traffic f.e. LAN,VMotion,ecc
and you have designed this partial mesh :

bay1->xcross->bay2
....
bayn->xcross->bayn+1

bay1->uplink->bay3
bay2->uplink->bay4
...
bayn->uplink->bayn+2

bay1->uplink->bay8
bay7->uplink->bay2


you can create 2 MSTP instances (STG in gb2ec gergon) mapping VLAN 10 on instance 1 and other VLAN on instance 0 (VLAN1 is locked into IST) and use path cost and priorities to build 2 independent specular paths: one for storage traffic and one for other traffic!

obviously only 1 uplink is active to your core switch the other is blocked/standby

I think this is what you want to achieve isn't it?

Regards,

Antonio

[Robert Marek]

Thanks Antonio for your help so far. Any chance we could talk offline? My email address is robson13@gmail.com

I'm attaching another drawing. This is how switches are connected right now.
I'm doing very simple setup. There is only one VLAN on on switch1. Every other switch have IP interface for this VLAN and all ports that connect switches toghether including ports 17 and 18 belongs to this VLAN.

All switches are setup the same way but Switch3 is causing problems...
If this switch is powered up I can't ping switches2, 6 and 8. If I power off switch3 I'm pinging switches 2, 6 and 8 again. I don't understand this...

[Adrian Clint]

Have a look at the GbE2c forums
http://www.bladenetwork.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=43