10Gbs multi-chassis ether-channel

[Colin Higgins]

I would like to build a multi-chassis ether-channel between a pair of 6509s with VSS enabled and a pair of 6513s.

On the 6509 side, I would use a 10 Gig port off the supervisor 2T and one of the 10 Gig ports from a line card. On the 6513 side, the channels would terminate on a 10 Gig line card. So I would basically have 20Gbs to each 6513.

Are there are limitations with this? I have not seen examples of anyone doing this at 10Gbs speeds.

[JohnTylerPearce · Accepted solution]

I don't think this would be a problem. Are you planning on running L2 etherchannels or L3 etherchannels?

I'm a littel confused on your first question. On the 6509 side, You would use a 10 gig port of the Sup2T and one of the 10Gi ports from a line card. Are you talking about VSL between 6500 switches or running MEC to each distribution/access switch? The channels terminating on a 10gig line card sounds pretty good. But if you have a switch your running MEC on it would obviously need 2 10gig E ports going to one 10gig port on each 6513.

[Colin Higgins]

These would be dot1q trunks back to the 6513s

My goal is to do a VSL using 2 10 Gig connections between the 6509s to create a VSS

Then I want to create a multi-chassis etherchannel trunk arrangement back to the two 6513s.

So I would have 20 GBs throughtout

[Vivek Ganapathi]

Hello Colin,

This is a standard design practice used to form a MEC. It would work fine. But the only thing you may need to re-consider is to have the VSL links on two different line cards on your 6509 (if available). If you have both the VSL control link on the same line card, a possibility of line card hardware failure may cause disruption or break your VSS.

Below link can give you a good idea

http://www.netcraftsmen.net/component/content/article/69-data-center/749-vss-configuration.html

Thanks

Vivek

[Colin Higgins]

Vivek:

Yes, that was my intention: to use a 10G interface from two different cards (the Sup 2T and a 10G fiber line card) on the 6509

In that example from netcraftsmen, he uses two interfaces from the same card (the Sup), meaning that if he loses the 2T on one of the switches, the entire chassis is lost.

[Vivek Ganapathi]

Correct. He uses same line cards to setup the VSL link. Not a good practice though. But that URL link is just a good start to setup VSS.

[JohnTylerPearce · Accepted solution]

Sounds like a good plan to me. Also make surw to set your etherchannel load balancimg up so you gey use oir ot both links

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[pzharyuk2012]

Since you mentioned this, what would be the best way to load balance etherchannel links. I have a situation at work where I have 2 10gig ports bounded by an etherchannel interconnecting two core switches. Once in a while a get discards on all etherchannel elements on one side only, the other side is clean. If you know of a fool proof solution how to load balance please help!