(I'm a little out of my depth here, so there may be some bits needing lateral interpretation...)
We already use bonded/trunked ethernet from the NetApp to a switch. That's fine.
We are planning a network upgrade, which gives us a chance to do this bonding/trunking to a logically linked pair of switches (Cisco 3750E) that operate as a single virtual switch, using "MEC". (The theory is that if a switch in the MEC-pair fails, the bond/trunk link continues working through the other switch, albeit with degraded throughput.)
Does anyone know whether MEC does/doesn't (will/won't) work? Is there anything MEC-specific that needs to be done in NetApp? Issues? (Other questions I should be asking? Etc.)
Pointers to existing information would probably be fine.
Thanks in advance.
On Wed, 4 Feb 2009, David Lee wrote:
We are planning a network upgrade, which gives us a chance to do this bonding/trunking to a logically linked pair of switches (Cisco 3750E) that operate as a single virtual switch, using "MEC". (The theory is that if a switch in the MEC-pair fails, the bond/trunk link continues working through the other switch, albeit with degraded throughput.)
Does anyone know whether MEC does/doesn't (will/won't) work? Is there anything MEC-specific that needs to be done in NetApp? Issues? (Other questions I should be asking? Etc.)
It's not possible to do cross-chassis LACP / PAGP, on stacked 3750Gs at least. The switches will tell you that all ports must be on the same physical switch (and give you a maximum of 12 port-channel interfaces, which for a 24 port switch makes sense).
Etherchannel *is* possible however. The cisco side of things is pretty straightforward. I'm using it for a few 7200 routers rather than a NetApp so I can't offer any advice on that side.
-Ronan
On Feb 4, 2009, at 8:14 AM, Ronan Mullally wrote:
It's not possible to do cross-chassis LACP / PAGP, on stacked 3750Gs at least. The switches will tell you that all ports must be on the same physical switch (and give you a maximum of 12 port-channel interfaces, which for a 24 port switch makes sense).
This issue has been fixed in recent code releases IIRC. (We're running it in production, and I do remember having to upgrade to work around that issue.)
~Max
This works fine, and is a pretty popular setup.. It's just like a normal etherchannel or LACP setup.. in fact, you likely won't have to touch the filer configuration at all.
~Max
On Feb 4, 2009, at 7:27 AM, David Lee wrote:
(I'm a little out of my depth here, so there may be some bits needing lateral interpretation...)
We already use bonded/trunked ethernet from the NetApp to a switch. That's fine.
We are planning a network upgrade, which gives us a chance to do this bonding/trunking to a logically linked pair of switches (Cisco 3750E) that operate as a single virtual switch, using "MEC". (The theory is that if a switch in the MEC-pair fails, the bond/trunk link continues working through the other switch, albeit with degraded throughput.)
Does anyone know whether MEC does/doesn't (will/won't) work? Is there anything MEC-specific that needs to be done in NetApp? Issues? (Other questions I should be asking? Etc.)
Pointers to existing information would probably be fine.
Thanks in advance.
--
: David Lee I.T. Service : : Senior Systems Programmer Computer Centre : : UNIX Team Leader Durham University : : South Road : : http://www.dur.ac.uk/t.d.lee/ Durham DH1 3LE : : Phone: +44 191 334 2752 U.K. :
we also utilize VSS/MEC in some of our cisco environments with LACP and this works fine on the netapp filers without any special configurations.
________________________________________ From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Maxwell Reid [max.reid@saikonetworks.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 12:11 PM To: David Lee Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: MEC (Multichassis EtherChannel)
This works fine, and is a pretty popular setup.. It's just like a normal etherchannel or LACP setup.. in fact, you likely won't have to touch the filer configuration at all.
~Max
On Feb 4, 2009, at 7:27 AM, David Lee wrote:
(I'm a little out of my depth here, so there may be some bits needing lateral interpretation...)
We already use bonded/trunked ethernet from the NetApp to a switch. That's fine.
We are planning a network upgrade, which gives us a chance to do this bonding/trunking to a logically linked pair of switches (Cisco 3750E) that operate as a single virtual switch, using "MEC". (The theory is that if a switch in the MEC-pair fails, the bond/trunk link continues working through the other switch, albeit with degraded throughput.)
Does anyone know whether MEC does/doesn't (will/won't) work? Is there anything MEC-specific that needs to be done in NetApp? Issues? (Other questions I should be asking? Etc.)
Pointers to existing information would probably be fine.
Thanks in advance.
--
: David Lee I.T. Service : : Senior Systems Programmer Computer Centre : : UNIX Team Leader Durham University : : South Road : : http://www.dur.ac.uk/t.d.lee/ Durham DH1 3LE : : Phone: +44 191 334 2752 U.K. :
Another person chiming in that it works and works well, this is what I've got configured for my back end storage network. Works like a charm.
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Leeds, Daniel Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 5:15 PM To: Maxwell Reid; David Lee Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: RE: MEC (Multichassis EtherChannel)
we also utilize VSS/MEC in some of our cisco environments with LACP and this works fine on the netapp filers without any special configurations.
________________________________________ From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Maxwell Reid [max.reid@saikonetworks.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 12:11 PM To: David Lee Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: MEC (Multichassis EtherChannel)
This works fine, and is a pretty popular setup.. It's just like a normal etherchannel or LACP setup.. in fact, you likely won't have to touch the filer configuration at all.
~Max
On Feb 4, 2009, at 7:27 AM, David Lee wrote:
(I'm a little out of my depth here, so there may be some bits needing lateral interpretation...)
We already use bonded/trunked ethernet from the NetApp to a switch. That's fine.
We are planning a network upgrade, which gives us a chance to do this bonding/trunking to a logically linked pair of switches (Cisco 3750E) that operate as a single virtual switch, using "MEC". (The theory is that if a switch in the MEC-pair fails, the bond/trunk link continues working through the other switch, albeit with degraded throughput.)
Does anyone know whether MEC does/doesn't (will/won't) work? Is there anything MEC-specific that needs to be done in NetApp? Issues? (Other questions I should be asking? Etc.)
Pointers to existing information would probably be fine.
Thanks in advance.
--
: David Lee I.T. Service : : Senior Systems Programmer Computer Centre : : UNIX Team Leader Durham University : : South Road : : http://www.dur.ac.uk/t.d.lee/ Durham DH1 3LE : : Phone: +44 191 334 2752 U.K. :
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This most definitely works, with supported switches. I'm using a pair of 3750Es, with a link from each ESX host on each switch, and two links from each filer. The ESX links are configured "on" and the filer links with LACP.
There is more detail in TR3428 (http://www.netapp.com/us/library/technical-reports/tr-3428.html) and in VMWorld session TA2784 (which you get from the VMWorld site or there might be a copy out there if you Google hard enough).
Cisco isn't the only vendor with this kind of functionality, but they do seem the most prevalent.
Enjoy!
Peter
-----Original Message----- From: David Lee [mailto:t.d.lee@durham.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 7:27 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: MEC (Multichassis EtherChannel)
(I'm a little out of my depth here, so there may be some bits needing lateral interpretation...)
We already use bonded/trunked ethernet from the NetApp to a switch. That's fine.
We are planning a network upgrade, which gives us a chance to do this bonding/trunking to a logically linked pair of switches (Cisco 3750E) that operate as a single virtual switch, using "MEC". (The theory is that if a switch in the MEC-pair fails, the bond/trunk link continues working through the other switch, albeit with degraded throughput.)
Does anyone know whether MEC does/doesn't (will/won't) work? Is there anything MEC-specific that needs to be done in NetApp? Issues? (Other questions I should be asking? Etc.)
Pointers to existing information would probably be fine.
Thanks in advance.