Design advices : dual stacked Series 500 switch

[benoitn1984]

Hi,

I am about to buy 2x Series 500 switches but before that I have a design to be sure :

I want to create a redondant network so it is the reason why I want to stack 2x Series 500 switches.

Each server on my network (ESX and Windows 2008) are connected with two NIC (one port on the first switch , one port on the second switch), with trunk mode + etherchannel for LACP.

First question :

I saw that the limitation is up to 8 etherchanel groups, can I have a mix of multiple servers on the same etherchannel group or should I create one etherchanel group for one server with only the two NIC inside?

Second question:

I want to use the series 500 to do intervlan routing and want to be sure that if the the ports are in trunk mode with some vlan set on the card itself that the default gateway for the vlan will be propagated on the two switches (in stack mode) and will not cause any issues when both switchs works fine and if one switch crashes?

Many thanks for your help,

Benoit

[benoitn1984]

To add a scheme to make it clear...

[David Hornstein]

Hi Benoit,

Sure the servers could be in their own individual VLAN separated from  user VLAN. 

Not a problem, as the switch is a Layer 3 device and will switch between Layer 3 networks.

Yes I agree with you to have Individual  switch Link Aggregation Groups (LAG) for individual servers running LAG. i think it just makes sense. How can I split a server LAG dual cable into two different switch LAG groups . hmm doesn't make sense to me, someone may disagree.

But as you appreciate,  stacking provides not only link redundancy,  but because the switch  Link Aggregation Group (LAG) is spread across multiple switches it also offers switch redundancy in case of switch failure. .   A great great solution for small businesses

This is Exactly what the SG500 series is meant to do in stack mode,  we don't scream this feature out loud enough,  probably because the 200,300 and 500 series switches have so so many features. 

Benoit,  we are having a online technical discussion  on the new 500  product line on Thursday 17 May 2012 at 1pm New York City daylight time,. .

Check the Cisco event  calendar for he Good Morning Techies event and register for it, we only hold these once a month. The link to cisco event calendar follows;

http://www.cvent.com/EVENTS/Calendar/Calendar.aspx?cal=313c653e-5061-464b-9bc8-56ab83b20f47

The Product Manager (PM)  will be there presenting, he is tremendous, I plan on being a panelist to assist the PM .

regards Dave

[benoitn1984]

Hi David,

First let me thank you for your reply

Last thing is not so clear is about LAG (etherchannel), I saw a limitation of up to 8 group on SB switches.

I have more than 8 servers, my question is : if I want the LACP / or other type of etherchannel works correctly do I need to add only two NIC of the same server (on per switches like my scheme below) on the same group or can I put multiple server NICs on the same group?

Many thanks,

Benoît