VRRP / RSTP Setup

[jaredo_1]

Can a few people please take a look at the diagram below and see if there are any issues with this setup. All switches have 2gb trunks between, also, my priority #'s are slightly off because I accidentally started with 4092 instead of 4096, and hp summarizes stp priorities(1 = 4096) anyways but you get the idea.

I would use the 3500's instead of having 2848's in a distribution layer but I don't have a budget for (2) 48port 3500yl, thus the added layer. 3500yl seems to be the cheapest gig switch I can get VRRP on (with premium license) unless someone knows otherwise.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2753/4166761341_c34dbb713b_o.jpg

[jaredo_1]

Also there are about 9 access switches, I just showed 4 for simplicity.

[jaredo_1]

Would MSTP be a better route as well?

[Michael_Breuer · Accepted solution]

Hi Jaredo

the setup looks fine for me. Just some comments:

1) I would prefer HP switches in access layer instead of Linksys. This would avoid any compatible issues between STP standards. Whats about 25xx or 26xx ?

2) MSTP would make sense if the traffic is nearly distributed over the three VLANs. But consider increasing complexity in the network, because you will have different topologies for each VLANs (at least two topologies).

3) STP Root and VRRP Master should be on the same switch to avoid suboptimal traffic flow.

Cheers,

Michael

[jaredo_1]

I also would prefer HP access switches, unfortunately replacing 9 or 10 switches gets pricey and the linksys/cisco srw2048 are very nice gig switches for the price so I can't justify tossing them (right now anyways). I do agree with having some concern with compatibility between them but as long as they both follow the ieee protocol for mstp they should operate fine.

As for the vlans, we do plan on implementing voice on the network in the future, so there will actually end up being 4 vlans for use with mstp, in which I'd probably prioritize the mgmt vlan and voice vlans on one switch and the remainder on the other.

The nice thing about the 3500's is they have support for 4 10gb interfaces, which in the future we'll probably end up replacing the 2800s at the dist layer and run 10gb between them.

Thanks for the input :)