Trunking ESW 500 and Catalyst 2960 possible?

[response3]

While I'm familiar with the Catalyst line of switches, I have not worked on the ESW models.  I'm looking for anyone that has done this successfully.  Can the native vlan be changed on both sides, is it possible to limit the vlans allowed across the trunk on the ESW, and are they configurable via CLI?

Thanks.

[chrcoope]

Hello,

You can change the Native/Management VLAN on the ESW (yes).

You have to specify what VLANs will pass across the trunk (yes).

We can not configure ESW switches from the command line (no).

Regards,

Christopher

[alissitz]

Christopher is awesome!

Just to add a little to this ...

The ESW supports only standardized 802.1q protocol for trunking.

For vlans you do not want to traverse the trunk link, just make these excluded.  HTH,

Andrew Lissitz

[response3]

Thanks, have either of you done this between a Catalyst switch and an ESW switch successfully?  I've got a client that has 3750G core and is looking at buying 100 of these ESW 500 switches.  I want to make sure there won't be any problems with 802.1q trunks between these devices.  As for configuration of large numbers of these, any suggestions?

[alissitz]

I have done it with UC500s, 2960s, and 3560e, but not with a 3750 .  On the Catalyst, you can watch the console for messages related to native vlans, dynamic protocols, etc ... the ESWs only support standardized protocols; with the exception of supporting CDP for voice vlans and poe power assignments.

By having the console open on the 3750 and configuring the ESWs, you will be able to ensure it works.

A concern I might mention is related to management, each ESW is single managed.  W/ Catalyst you have much greater enterprise management, 'nerd knobs', debugging, network operation / protocol visibility, QOS queue visibility, etc...

Also, if doing a lot of etherchannel the configs on the ESWs get fairly 'cluegy'... so to be so vague, but the best switches for large deployments are Catalyst (as you know ;-)).  The ESWs can fit, but are really designed for ease of use in a small network. Just keep a console open on the Cisco and you will have no problems.

Does this make sense?  HTH,

Andrew Lissitz