connecting two redundant servers

[ccrespoh]

Hello,

I'm interesting in connecting two server to a 6509 Catalyst. These two servers are redundant, basicaly they're the same and only one of them is working at the same time.

Both of them have the same ip, so only one can be connected to the network. But I need both connected and when one (the active) fails the other starts to work. Do you know what I want?

Is there some way to connect both to two different ports (one active and the other not) and monitor the active one and when it fails, "switch off" the active and "switch on" the other?

I'm not sure if I've made it quite clear.

Thanks in advance.

[marinos_g]

Actually, I don't thing you have do anything.

All you have to do is configure your Catalyst ports to be simple HUB ports.

Both of the servers have the same IP. This shouldn't worry you because only one of them is opperational. The other one is on stand-by mode. This means that only one port on your Catalyst will be up.

When the working server (server A) fails for a reason, the other server (server B) is going on-line and server A stops. So as a result, you will see port A on the Catalyst going down and port B going up.

In order for this to happen, the servers need to be connected together via anoher interface.

Each server should have two interfaces. One of them used for connection to the Catalyst and the other one for connection to the other server.

This switching between the servers should be fast, so you have to disable spanning-tree and use spanning tree port fast.

I hope this helps you

Marinos

[ccrespoh]

Well, the problem is not as easy because of the servers are configured in the same way and *they don't know there is another server*. I mean, the redundant server will start to work when its network interface goes up.

In other words, the redundancy issue should be resolved from the network management. The server administrator want to make no extra configuration apart from the server configuration.

So, I'm looking for the way to "switch on and off" ports depending the activity or state of the servers.

Any idea? is it possible?

[marinos_g]

This makes the job easier for the server administrator and harder for us, isn't it :-)

What I was thinking is if you could assign the one fastethernet port as backup to the other one.

!

interface fas0/0

backup interface fastethernet 0/1

!

interface fas0/1

backup interface fastethernet 0/0

The configuration may need more, but that's the idea more or less...

If you think something like this could work, let me know and we can work it together

Regards

Marinos