HP Integrity rx2800 HP Integrity Network Adapter Teaming Whitepaper - Page 54
Redundancy Mechanism Priority, Redundancy Mechanism Comparison Chart, On most Cisco switches
View all HP Integrity rx2800 manuals
Add to My Manuals
Save this manual to your list of manuals |
Page 54 highlights
1. Switch ports connected to teamed ports should be configured to bypass Spanning Tree's block/listen/learn stages. These stages are not needed for ports connected to end node devices (for example, servers, PCs, etc.) 2. Switch ports connected to teamed ports MUST transmit BPDUs. Without BPDUs, Fast Path will not have the information it needs to make decisions. 3. On most Cisco switches, such as the HP BladeSystem Cisco Gigabit Ethernet Module (CGESM), PortFast is the best setting to use for switch ports connected to teamed ports. This setting accomplishes both recommendations #1 and #2 above. 4. On HP BladeSystem GbE blade switches, bypass is the best setting to use for switch ports connected to teamed ports. This setting accomplishes both recommendations #1 and #2 above. 5. On HP BladeSystem GbE2 blade switches, switch ports connected to teamed ports should have Spanning Tree enabled. This setting accomplishes recommendation #2 above. Currently the GbE2 does not provide a feature that accomplishes recommendation #1 above. As a result, the switch port will not allow communication for up to one minute after link is established because of Spanning Tree loop prevention stages (listen, learn). This can cause problems when using protocols like PXE to deploy a server image. An upcoming version of firmware for the GbE2, version 2.2, may include the feature called Fast Forward. This feature accomplishes the same thing as PortFast and should be enabled for all BladeSystem server ports. Redundancy Mechanism Priority Refer to "Mechanism Priority". Redundancy Mechanism Comparison Chart Table 4-7 Redundancy mechanism comparison chart Link loss Detects Layer 1 (physical layer) problems √ Detects Layer 2 (data link layer) problems Detects Layer 3 (network layer) problems Detects failure to receive a frame Detects failure to transmit a frame Detects ports split across different LANs/VLANs Validates end-to-end Layer 2 connectivity per teamed port with a designated external device (echo node) Chooses teamed port with highest bandwidth path to core switch (STP root) Chooses teamed port with lowest hop count to core switch (STP root) Passive mechanism √ Active mechanism Basic redundancy (for free) √ Advanced redundancy (for fee) Detects bad ports versus good ports √ Tx path validation √ √ Rx path Active Path validation √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ Fast Path √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ 54 The Mechanics of Teaming for the Advanced User