Nexus 5548UP uplink to Catalyst 4510R

[BlueMCisco]

I am designing my fully 10g datacenter access layer with a pair of 5548UP switches in an EvPC and a pair of dual homed 2232PP FEX's. I need to be able to uplink my pair of 5500's up to my pair of 4510R classic aggregation switches. Each 4510R has two SUP V supervisors, each with two 10g X2 ports. I have a dual 10g trunk in a port channel between each 4510R.

What is the ideal method for uplinking from the 5500's to the 4510R switches? As far I understand only one out of the two 10g ports on each Sup V can be active. Should I dual home each 5548 to each 4510R and let STP do its thing? Am I able to do that with my SUP V's? And if so, will I still be able to trunk dual 10g ports in a port channel between the two 4510R switches? I need to maintain a large pipe between the aggregation swithces for my regular campus traffic that does not traverse to the datacenter.

Thanks!

[Marwan ALshawi · Accepted solution]

well since you can not cluster the 45K as a virtual switch ( Cisco with new sup will start support VSS in the 4500 try to check which sup exactly and if you can upgrade as this will make a significant improvement to your design )

anyway the only method that you can use currently is the traditional way which is depending on STP ( use rapid-PVST)

from each N5K use one separate link to each 45K and STP will put on of the links in blocking mode

however you might do some STP and vlan design for load sharing where you can send vlan x over link1 and vlan y over link b to the 45K using STP cost

HTH

[Devavrat Oka]

If these are two NX5Ks running a vPC, then you can configure one 5K as root primary for a couple of VLANs and another 5K as root primary for remaining VLANs. This way you can load balance STP root bridge.

Also, it is a good practice to use the vPC feature and port-channel the 4510 upstream to the 5Ks. Try cross connecting the 5K and 4510 as follows:

NX5K-1=====NX5K-2

        |       X      |

     4510        4510

[Ashok Basapure]

Marwanshawi,

How did you implement the connectivity?

Did you use STP OR vPC between N5K & 4510?

Thanks

Ashok

[Marwan ALshawi]

Well I am not the original poster in this discussion

However iv the up stream switches can be clustered using vss then you can run from nexus to vss pair MEC

And from vss pair to n5k vPC

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPad App

[BlueMCisco]

I ended up dual home'ing each 4510R to each n5k in a vPC and I let STP block the vPC from one of the 4510R's to the two n5k's. I did this because I needed to keep an active etherchannel between the two 4510R's since they are doing Layer 3 for lots of hosts that hang off of both of them.

Thanks!

[Marwan ALshawi]

if you blocked one the vPC member ports/links then you are not getting any benefit of using vPC !!

if you have a L3 link or L2 link between the 45Ks and you use the SVIs in each 45k to do IGP peering over the interswitch link then you should be ok ( you may use a vlan not used between 45k and N5K for the IGP/routing peering over this intererswitch trunk )

hope this help