3Com E5500G-EI XRN config?

[LostedMan]

Hi all.  I have the following setup: 3Com 8810 modular switch at the core, and two user closets, each with five 3Com E5500G-EI (JE094a) switches.  Each switch is standalone and has its own 10G-SR link back to the 8810.  I just found a box of brand-new XRN stacking cables in storage, so I plan to create an XRN fabric in each closet.  I have never done this, and the documentation is somewhat unclear.  My questions are:

1) If I have 5 switches in each XRN fabric, and each switch has a 10G connection back to the 8810, can I use all 5 uplinks in a link aggregation setup?  The documentation seems to say I can only have 4, but it's unclear (config guide pg 675, table 691).

2) The documentation seems to say I can do link aggregation between an XRN fabric and the 8810, but that I can't use LACP (config guide pg 680, table 694).  If the 8810 command reference shows LACP functionality, why would I not be able to use it?

I'm referring to the config guide part number 10014922 Rev. AC, Dec 2006.

The 8810 is running 3.01.31r, and the E5500Gs are running 3.03.02s168p18.

TIA,

Brian

[Peter_Debruyne]

Hi,

I have not too much experience on the comware 3 devices, but I heard that LACP was not working very well between serveral of these models, so you may be better of configuring a static link aggregation instead of LACP.

The 4 links in a link agg is probably a hardware limit of these models.

[LostedMan]

Thanks with the information on the LACP.  I will be replacing the 8810 (it's had a nice run of 229 weeks uptime) in the next few months with a Cisco 6509e, but I think I'll go with the static link aggregation.

As far as the max links in the link aggregation, here is my confusion:  the guide says in its chart, which is labeled "Table 691 Aggregated Links and Member Links Supported within a Fabric"

Switch 5500G-EI family

Max number of member links: 8 Gigabit Ethernet or 4 10Gbps Ethernet

Number of aggregated links: 32 per unit/stack

I think this is saying, in essence, "Within an single aggegated link group, you can't have more than 8 Gigabit Ethernet or 4 10Gig Ethernet ports as a total, in a unit or a stack", and "Within a fabric, you can have 32 different link aggregation groups".  Does that seem to you what it's saying?

[Graham Hurst]

It is definitely worth updating to p21 on the 5500Gs. (p19 included a large set of fixes)

[Peter_Debruyne · Accepted solution]

Yes, that is what it means (max 32 port-channels / link agg groups and max8G/4XG ports for each of these groups)

[LostedMan]

If I understand the process, it should go something like this:
1) Get same version on all switches
2) Erase configurations
3) Make sure file system is identical
4) Turn off, connect XRN cables
5) Bring up, make sure they connect correctly
6) Configure uplink port(s)
7) Configure link aggregation on XRN cluster and upstream device(s)
8) Configure user ports and VLANs
9) Dance about madly yelling "It's alive!"?