VSS Installation

mohamed.magdy · ‎03-05-2011

Hi ,

I am planning to install and configure VSS (6509) switches. But the customer requires that the First Switch should be the main and the second Switch should act as a backup one. (Disaster Recovery).

Once the Main (Primary switch) DOWN the Secondary one should coming UP

But what I am understand in VSS concept the two switches will act as one Switch. And both of them will be UP in the same time.

Is there any solution to configure the both VSS switch as primary and standby switch to provide HA?

Best Regards,

Collin Clark · ‎03-05-2011

Honestly this sounds like your customer isn't up to speed on Cisco technologies (not their fault). How I would handle this is to go back to them and ask what their pain points are. What I'm doing is trying to figure out why they want an active/passive type switching infrastructure. Once you find that out you can explain to them new functionality, like VSS, that alleviates their concerns for switch failure and also explain the other benefits like no STP and HSRP.

Hope it helps.

mohamed.magdy · ‎03-05-2011

I am totally agree with you, but the customer needs to build a disaster recovery data center. in case any failure happen in the Main one what have Primary Core-1 the traffic should go through another Core-2 what located in a disaster recovery data center.

I believe that this scenario need HSRP to achieve Active/Standby Scenario. but the customer looking for VSS to achieve that and I am now looking for any work around to use VSS to achieve that. If I don't found I will return back to him to explain more.

Hope anyone confirm or suggest a solution.

davy.timmermans · ‎03-07-2011

VSS is comparable to a stacked 3750: a logical switch

As you know, with one logical switch, HSRP doesn't play a role (unless you've 2 VSS installations)

You can regulate active/standby on the LAN side via STP eg.:

one switch with an uplink to each member of the VSS --> one link will be STP blocked. But VSS is not designed for that

The goal of VSS is to create extra bandwidth via a virtual portchannel in order to have 2 forwarding links.

Nothing news under the sun

Collin Clark · ‎03-07-2011

mohamed.magdy wrote:
I am totally agree with you, but the customer needs to build a disaster recovery data center. in case any failure happen in the Main one what have Primary Core-1 the traffic should go through another Core-2 what located in a disaster recovery data center.
I believe that this scenario need HSRP to achieve Active/Standby Scenario. but the customer looking for VSS to achieve that and I am now looking for any work around to use VSS to achieve  that. If I don't found I will return back to him to explain more.
Hope anyone confirm or suggest a solution.

Couldn't you still run VSS? Links from DC1 go into Switch1 and the Links is DC2 go into Switch2. Switch1 & Switch2 are in a VSS pair. How are the DC's connected?