Configuring an HP3500 to connect to an IBM BladeCenter H

[CA1060935]

Configuring an HP3500 to connect to an IBM BladeCenter H:

BladeCenter H Type MT8852 Product ID: 88524XU S/N: 99B2005 With two each internal Cisco CIGESM modules, 20 port network switches; (16 ports (one for each blade) + 4 external ports) per switch module.

I'm trying to locate someone who has actually deployed an IBM BladeCenter with the internal Cisco switch modules in an HP Procurve environment.

The main issues seem to be Cisco's "native vlan" and the use of Vlan id #1 for management in the BladeCenter and our primary network which resides on Vlan id #1, along with 802.1q vlan tagging versus Cisco's trunking versus HP trunks versus Cisco Etherchannels.

[Case Van Horsen]

I haven't used the IBM Blade Center but I've done quite a bit with Cisco and Procurve. I'll start with a question or two.

1) Will the Cisco switch card be connected to a single Procurve switch?

2) Will you be running any Spanning Tree protocol on the link between the switches? (This is related to question #1.)

3) Does vlan 1 on the Cisco switch correspond to a different vlan on the HP switch? If so, can you change management on the Cisco switch card to use that vlan? (I know this is possible on all recent standalone Cisco switches.)

4) What VLANs are defined on both switches?

To define an aggregated link between the two switches, I would probably enable the LACP protocol on both ends:

HP:
trunk 1-4 trk1 lacp

Cisco:
int range gi0/1 - 4
channel-group 1 mode passive

In order to get VLAN tagged to work in any sane manner, you'll need to make the VLAN usage consistent on both switches. I normally do not use VLAN 1 for any purpose, on either brand of switch.

casevh