ASK THE EXPERT- CATALYST 6500 SERIES SWITCHES

[ciscomoderator]

Welcome to the Cisco Networking Professionals Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to discuss Catalyst 6500 Series switches with Cisco expert Jeff Raymond. Jeff is a Technical Marketing Engineer for the Catalyst 6500 Series of switches. His focus is on switching architectures and performance testing. Feel free to post any questions relating to Catalyst 6500 series switches.

Jeff may not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Our moderators will post many of the unanswered questions in other discussion forums shortly after the event. This event lasts through January 18. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

[nnavarro]

How do you get "standby track" to work on two MSFC's in the same 6509 chassis? I'd like to track the two vlan's connected to the two core 6509's. The switch supervisor knows when the link to a core switch has gone down but the virtual interface in the MSFC is still up? Each distribution 6509 has a fiber connection to the two core 6509's.

[jeraymon]

Hi,

You can track an HSRP interface only after that MSFC interface VLAN has gone down.

There is a function called autostate that runs between the Supervisor (L2) and the MSFC (L3). Autostate is responsible for notifying the MSFC when the last/first port in a vlan goes down/up. This is so that the MSFC interface VLAN will be in the correct down/up state.

If you have the case were the MSFC interface is still up, then most likely there is a port somewhere in that VLAN that is still up. Possibly a trunk port or the SC0 interface.

This doesn't change with dual MSFC's in a chassis. Since all VLAN interfaces should be identical on the two MSFCs, the autostate function ensures that both MSFC's get the notification.

Hope this helps.

Jeff Raymond

Catalyst 6500 Product Team

[nnavarro]

Hi Jeff,

Were not pruning VTP so the VLAN uplinks occur on all the trunks. Thank you.

Nestor

[mgaouar]

We have 2 routers linked by HSRP.We want to secure ( redundancy )also 2 main switches 3Com.I know that VRRP is not compatible with HSRP.The aim is to make any server always available ( 2 NIC cards on each one ).Is this realistic ? Do I have to change to one Catalyst switch ? What is CSS ? What kind of solution I have if I want to be 100% available for my customers ?

Please,it's an urgent matter

Thanks

[jeraymon]

Hi,

HSRP and VRRP are not compatible. But, these protocols are used for default gateway redundancy for end stations. Even if you have 4x routers which have could be the default gateway, it is not necessary to have all these routers actually provide the default gateway. For instance, you could have 2x routers in one HSRP group - then you could use a routing protocol for providing redundant path failover to the other routers.

In general, you might be interested in reading some of the documents available here for more information on highly available network design:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/largeent/design/campus_index.html

The Cisco CSS is a Cisco L4-7 load-balancing product. I would contact your local Cisco account team for more information.

Hope this helps.

Jeff Raymond

Catalyst 6500 Product Team

[stuabrown · Accepted solution]

Jeff,

Can you confirm a switch design scenario I'm developing for a customer. Can a 6509 with MSFC2 run as an MLS-RP and populate the multicast cache to external switches that are;

1. 5509's directly attached running NFFC ( WS-F5521)

2. 5509's attached via a L3 RSM routed connection then L2 uplink to a 5509 running NFFC

Best Regards

Stuart

Dimension Data

[mdelogu]

Hi,

I have one Catalyst 6509 whith 2 Supervisors and MSFC2 ios enterprise; I have shaped the Catalyst whith "system highavailability" and "multi HSRP".I have a problem when I reset one of Supervisors: in this case i lost the connectivity.

If I reset one of 2 layer3 module the HSRP works correctly.

I have shaped redundancy on layer 3 module.

Thanks

[alassafo]

Hi Jeff;

We just upgraded our switches from Nortel to Cisco, we are using CAT 6513 as a backbone and 4006 as an edge switches, I realized that win 9x users getting a problem of duplicate IP addresses, the DHCP server (NT) is the same as before but we didn't have this problem with the Nortel switches ...any ideas?

Thanks

Othman

[nehs]

Hi All,

One of my customer wants to install  WS-F6k-48-AF= cards, which is a daughtercard that will be added to an existing card. Does the installation require a reboot or reconfiguration ? Do we lose interface config when we add the daughter card ?

Any link/documents  will be appreciated.

Thanks and Regards,

Neha