IE Switches High Availability - Stackwise or other technologies?

[ezisaac]

I am working on designing a small but high availability industrial network that topology could be a "Start (hub & spoke)" or "Ring (DLR)" (TBD, all DCS with dual NICs). May I know what's the highest performance (lowest system down time) network design? How do I select between IE 3K vs. 4K series? If "Star", are there any Stacking or Stackwise support IES series? If no stacking support, are there any way to prevent the STP down time while a node or link failure?

[balaji.bandi]

You can also consider chasis (inter chasis has many redundant, like dual PSU,. dual Supervisors) dual blades. - high performance. with low budget like Cat 4500.

In-terms of IE not sure you have more options.

Stackwise virtua and stacking works, but they have their own pros and cons.

[ezisaac]

Hi Balaji, Thanks for your comment. BTW, this is for a small industrial control network and the PRP/HSR type of HA is required. We may use PRP on this project. To prevent single point of failure of switch, we need two IES 4010/4000 (no Cat-4500). There are total 16 DCS in this building. Each DCS equips with two COMM interfaces (COMM-A and COMM-B). DCS support PRP (via LAN-A and LAN-B). So, I think we may select IE-4010 or IE4000 as the switch or REDBox of this project. Please see my schematic design as below. My questions are:

1. To prevent IES failure, do I need to connect IE4010-1 and IE4010-2 together via their uplink port G1/25, 26 to support PRP?

2. Shall I use the rest of G1/27, 28 as uplink ports to connect to building core switches (Cat-9500 with stackwise virtual)?

3. Are there any CVD for a small industrial network case that I may reference?

Thanks,

[balaji.bandi]

Personally, I do not believe you need that link, since you already have a high availability link side. In general Catalyst, we do add that link for east-west traffic.

if you traffic south to north and north to south always, that may be not required (this is in general, i am not expert of IE product) 

some high availability guide may help you.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/connectedgrid/cg-switch-sw-master/software/configuration/guide/hsr/b_hsr_ie4k.html

[ezisaac]

Hi Balaji,

I agreed with you and I believe there is no link required in between IE4010-1 and IE4010-2. 

Can some IE SME confirm that with me please? Thanks,

[ezisaac]

Hi team,

One of the critical questions is how "SAN" connect to this PRP network (if only 2x IES4010 as diagram shows)? All the "DAN"s on the diagram should work fine with LAN-A and LAN-B but can those 4010 play "RedBox" function and support SAN (just few) on this design? If we connect both PRP Channel-group 1 ports (G1/25&26) between those two 4010, can they play itself as a "RedBox" and support SANs? Comments?