Active/Active Teaming over 2 x 2960's

[scott-goodwin]

Hi Guys,

Is it possible to create an Active/Active Team from a vmware ESX server, across two seperate 2960's??

If so whats the configuration on the switch side / vm side?

Thanks

Scott

[Sebastian Helmer]

Hey Scott,

this will be possible with two 2960S series switch stack. If they are stacked you have one virtual, configure just a etherchannel like on one switch, thats all.

Or you if you use the Nexus 1000v @esx you can use vPC Host Mode.

I'm not sure if you can play with spanning-tree but I think this could be possible in some cases to put both Ports UP an block the loop between the both switches. I have no much experiense with Teaming in this case.

Hope that helps.

Sebastian..

[Chad Peterson]

As Sebastian said, if you have Nexus 1000 on the ESX host then you can use vPC host mode, or if not, you could stack your 2960S (if you have 2960S).

If you do have regular 2960s you can still do some bit of active/active teaming to the 2960s using the vSwitch.

On the 2960 you will configure the links to the ESX/ESXi host as regular trunks.  On the ESX host you would want to go to the networking config and click on your vSwitchX properties.  Then just click edit.  There you'll see a NIC Teaming tab, you will want to select specify the Load Balancing.

In this case you want "route based on the originating virtual port ID" or "Route based on source MAC Hash".

Either of those two will work.  What will end up happening is that each VM will get forwarded over 1 link.  If that link fails they will go over the other link.

Hope that helps

Chad

[Lucien Avramov]

Remember that ESX doesnt support LACP. I would suggest you to go with access vlans or trunks on the switch side.

If you have Nexus 1000v, that will empower your ESX to run LACP to the switches in your network.