Hi does anyone know if it is possible to setup Cisco switches including model for High availability redunancy setup? I guess I would need two switch and have a server with two ethernet cards, each card connected to each switch, but then how would I configure the switches so that if one switch fails the other would take over? or if one interface fails the other switch would take over? Thanks for your help!!!
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HA reduancy for Cisco Switch?
- Thread starter tomii
- Start date
Consider setting up an Etherchannel using LACP. The following link goes into a lot more detail about it and how to configure:
- Thread starter
- #3
Hi KiscoKid...thanks for that, but I don't quite understand being new to cisco switches. What I'm after is having two switch, one active and one on standby if the active one fails, can switch be configured with failover? what about on the port level, if on port fails can it be switched over to the standby switch just for that port? Thanks All!!!
Etherchannel with LACP aka Link Aggregation will do all this for you.
First and foremost, you need to ensure your server supports it. Depending on the server vendor, this feature may be called "Link Aggregation", "Ethernet Trunk", "NIC Teaming", Port Teaming", "Port Trunking", "NIC Bonding" - you get the idea.
Once you've set this up on the server, you need to carry out a little switch configuration also. The link I posted above explains in great detail, with step by step configuration steps, on how to setup LACP over Etherchannel (Link Aggregation Control Protocol)
Good luck
First and foremost, you need to ensure your server supports it. Depending on the server vendor, this feature may be called "Link Aggregation", "Ethernet Trunk", "NIC Teaming", Port Teaming", "Port Trunking", "NIC Bonding" - you get the idea.
Once you've set this up on the server, you need to carry out a little switch configuration also. The link I posted above explains in great detail, with step by step configuration steps, on how to setup LACP over Etherchannel (Link Aggregation Control Protocol)
Good luck
- Thread starter
- #5
All of Cisco's current mainstream switch offerings support it (2950 upwards). Some of the older stuff will only have support for Etherchannel with PAGP (Cisco specific) and perhaps not for LACP.
Any idea what switch models you're looking at to deploy this on?
Any idea what switch models you're looking at to deploy this on?
- Thread starter
- #7
Hi KiscoKid, I have a few 2950 at present but looking at getting others like 3500 or even 6500 if needed. At this stage i'm not too sure which model I would need in terms of doing this task. So just to clarify, using Etherchannel with LACP would give me HA over switch failure, but for port failure that would be down to the NIC teaming on the server is that right? Many thanks!
Hi tomii
Yes the 2950 supports LACP as will the superior models you've listed there. So yes if your server supports nic teaming, you should be able to achieve the setup a high availability redundancy scenario with this server any any of the switches you've mentioned.
Yes the 2950 supports LACP as will the superior models you've listed there. So yes if your server supports nic teaming, you should be able to achieve the setup a high availability redundancy scenario with this server any any of the switches you've mentioned.
- Thread starter
- #9
Hi KiscoKid, Thanks for all your support so far. Its starting to make more sense now. But just a final clarification as I have been reading up from the Cisco website, it states that: 'If a link within an EtherChannel fails, traffic previously carried over that failed link changes to the remaining links within the EtherChannel', this seem to imply it being on the same switch, but what i need is for it to switch over to the other standby switch, am I missing something here?
Also it mentions something about Switch Cluster, is this also a HA feature which I need to consider?
Sorry for the constant question, but I'm just overloaded by info right now.
Thanks for your expertise!
Also it mentions something about Switch Cluster, is this also a HA feature which I need to consider?
Sorry for the constant question, but I'm just overloaded by info right now.
Thanks for your expertise!
Tomii
I can't see why you can't span over multiple switches as you want to do.
The only thing to bear in mind is that you should setup your environment such that the link to one of the switches is purely a backup and not for load-balancing. Otherwise you may run into issues with duplicate MAC addresses over multiple switches.
I can't see why you can't span over multiple switches as you want to do.
The only thing to bear in mind is that you should setup your environment such that the link to one of the switches is purely a backup and not for load-balancing. Otherwise you may run into issues with duplicate MAC addresses over multiple switches.
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