HSRP and NIC teaming, for servers redundancy

[musa_ktk_]

Hello experts,

i am to design( and i eaisn only design) a soltuion for fully redundant network (or server links). I have come up with this design:

i have assumed that all ther servers have NIC teaming enabled( for redudnancy ofcourse,, one link is active and another standby).

and i am using Multi Layer switches. Servers will be on  a VLAN.

My questions:

A) Will NIC teaming work properly while HSRP is configured  on Multi Layer Switches?

B) Do i need to connect Server and Multi Layer Switches through another layer of Layer2 switches or this will do the trick?

basically my questions are generic. All i wanted to know is this possible or i am creating a mess? A real quick reply will be much appreciated.

If someone can digg a little deep, then here is rough idea of my whole setup.

To give you experts, a full picture my Network Design,, here is how the lower half o network will look like.

Each Access layer switch will have its own Vlan, and Multi Layer Switches will do the inter-vlan routing.

It is easy to configure this setup having a single Core Switch.

But lets say i must have two Core Switches, and i Configure HSRP on both of them. then how this setup integrates with NIC teaming.

Quick reply please.

[mullzkBern_2 · Accepted solution]

1) NIC teaming will work only if you use Active/Standby-Teaming, as the network (including HSRP) does not care about this kind of teaming - it always sees two different MAC-Adresses on two different Interfaces (and two different switches in your case. Active/Active would not work however.

2) Definitly connect the servers on another Switch - Core-Switch is for Network-Uplinks only. If you attach Servers directly to the core, you will hamper future extensions of your network and troubleshooting gets much much worse.

If you absolutly need to save money, think about the routed access-layer again, but do not save it on the L2-Switches for Server-Access.

[Vivek Ganapathi · Accepted solution]

This design is basically said to be a collapsed architecture which is cost saving. Connecting servers to the core switch wouldn't be a good option as far as a design strategy is concerned (but it's solely upto you). I would prefer to have servers connected onto an access switch on a dedicated VLAN.

Nevertheless, your setup will work fine.

[musa_ktk_]

Thanks mullzkBern and Vivek for your reply. you guys are correct, adding another access layer switch would simplify things a lot and i am going to do it.