Not sure about spantree portfast haven't heard of that before. I believe our first failover test was actually an accident but we didn't have live users on it yet. It was not spontaneous but there was only about a 10 second delay. All you need to do it make sure when you configure it that you specify the name of the partner when you set up the NIC's other then that the filer basically does all the work in the failover situation. There is a small delay during the give back as well.

From: Daniel Oxenhandler daniel@sprintlabs.com To: "'toasters@mathworks.com'" toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Cluster + Cisco Switch Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 08:38:03 -0700

Friends,

We have just brought up a cluster with two F740 filers, running ONTAP 5.3.6R2. They are connected by Gigabit Ethernet to a Cisco Catalyst 5500 switch. This is on a 9 port Gigabit Etherchannel module. We didn't get a chance to test the failover behavior, and have questions for anyone who might be running a similar configuration.

Is the failover instantaneous, as suggested by our NetApp sales rep and CE, or is there a delay while things sort themselves out in the switch? Is there special configuration on the switch port that should be configured for these (e.g. "set spantree portfast") that should be applied?

Thanks for your insights...

Regards,

Daniel Oxenhandler Senior Network Engineer Sprint Laboratories 650-375-4281

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